Western gamers won't be looking at those in Japan with envy as they wait for Final Fantasy XV to be localized. Nope, Japanese gamers won't be getting preferential treatment this time around, as FFXV will be getting a simultaneous release all across the globe sometime next year.
In an interview at Gamescom with the game's director, Hajime Tabata, GameSpot learned of this exciting news, with Tabata telling the outlet: "This may be something that we are little bit embarrassed to talk about, but really, this is the first time that we've done a packaged, standalone Final Fantasy game with a simultaneous global launch, so we didn't have the setup to deal with that, really."
To make this possible, Tabata had a bit of internal rearrangement to work out. "The first thing we had to do was rearrange our internal structure to create something that could do that. That was the first important work on the project," he added. Perhaps that has had something to do with the game's incredibly long development cycle? After all, Final Fantasy XV was first announced back in E3 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
I don't know about you, but this news makes the wait slightly more bearable. When I had first heard that the game was on track for release for next year, I figured: "Sure, for Japan. But what about the rest of the world." Now, it looks like my fears have been assuaged.
Huzzah!
This move only further reinforces Square's commitment to appealing to gamers in the west. From Final Fantasy XV's more action-centric gameplay to the news that Kingdom Hearts III will be running on Unreal Engine 4, the Japanese publisher is breaking from tradition. I just really hope it works out for them.
