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171-414: The game was originally directed by Tetsuya Nomura , who also created the story concept and main character designs. Nomura wanted to create a darker Final Fantasy title unsuitable for the main series. The initial development went slowly, and by 2007 the scale of the project generated discussions about rebranding the game as the next main entry in the series. Production on Versus XIII ended in 2012, when it

342-539: A Nintendo product with the tennis and ping-pong variant of the Color TV-Game console and later borrowed a Family Computer in high school. Around that time, Dragon Quest became Nomura's favorite because it surprised him and introduced him to video games with story elements. His art teacher in high school pointed him towards the works of Final Fantasy illustrator Yoshitaka Amano . Nomura also created his own manga during class and intended to do this as

513-528: A digitally distributed episodic format for possible sequels. Nomura later clarified at the Japan Expo 2013 that no plans for sequels had been finalized. Later, Tabata stated in interviews that Final Fantasy XV would be released as a single complete experience, and that no sequel was planned. In addition, there were no plans for multiple endings or a cliffhanger ending, with Tabata citing the XIII trilogy as

684-449: A road movie vibe and experiences from his youth. The clothing for characters was designed by Hiromu Takahara, lead designer for Japanese fashion house Roen. He was brought on when Nomura was occupied with other duties including designing the main cast of Final Fantasy XIII . The main reason for his inclusion was the wish to preserve the game's realism by creating designs influenced by Western fashions. Takahara's designs were retained during

855-536: A broad way, and I want to go deeper in terms of offering some crude reality in terms of human emotion or human [behavior]. The goal, when a player holds a controller and plays [a role-playing game], is to make them believe in another world – to experience a dream in a fictional world. It will be different in Versus XIII because of the intrusion of the real world, and things that are really happening. There will be less fiction and more reality. Tetsuya Nomura on

1026-421: A child, it follows his journey back to consciousness, guided by a creature called Carbuncle that protects Noctis. Players who completed the demo are able to name Carbuncle in the main game. According to Tabata, Platinum Demo served a dual purpose: it both introduced players to the gameplay mechanics, and gave them insight into Noctis' young life and his relationship with his father. It was originally intended to be

1197-406: A developer's blog. Their stated reason was to offer a more accessible medium for both feedback and developer updates. After its appearance at the 2014 Paris Games Week , Tabata announced that XV ' s release window was "roughly decided", with the company recruiting new staff to work on the master build. While it did not show at E3 2015, it did appear at that year's Gamescom , which Tabata said

1368-446: A different goal behind its development: while Advent Children was made for dedicated fans of Final Fantasy VII , Kingsglaive was made as an introduction for newcomers to the world of XV , along with conveying some of Regis' backstory. Digic Pictures later collaborated with Square Enix on "Omen", a promotional trailer based on the world and story of XV . Another anime feature, a short film titled Episode Ardyn Prologue which detailed

1539-400: A godly figure" during his early days at Square. At that time, Nomura was also taught the basics of game design by Ito. He told Nomura never to stick to existing concepts but rather to reuse just specific ideas and explained concepts such as ease of control and effortless accessibility of magic spells. Ito's work as a battle system designer inspires Nomura when thinking of the gameplay system for

1710-587: A less emotive experience, but changed to being story-driven to better introduce players to the game's world. The demo was removed from sale in March 2017. A virtual reality -based fishing simulation game titled Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV was released in November 2017. Suggested by Sony Interactive Entertainment and originally a first-person shooter featuring Prompto and based on

1881-417: A linear structure was based on story requirements and budgetary restrictions, as making the entire experience open world would have doubled development time and costs. Many elements added to the game in later updates, such as controlling all the main characters, had to be discarded from the main game due to technological and budget-based restrictions. The lead designer for the game's AI was Yoichiro Miyake, who

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2052-496: A mistranslation, with the actual situation being that developers from the Versus XIII team were helping with XIII in their spare time, with development on both games going according to their original schedules. By June 2010, the game's story, and the character and clothing designs had been completed. By June 2011, the game was still in the pre-production phase. Full production on Versus XIII began in September of that year, with

2223-459: A mobile platform and wanted it to play slightly differently from other titles in the series. The result was Kingdom Hearts Coded , a game set after the events of Kingdom Hearts II , which was later remade for the Nintendo DS in 2010. In the meantime, Nomura was also responsible for the main character designs and orchestration of The World Ends with You for the Nintendo DS. In 2009, he

2394-563: A one-off presentation, the team said they were considering creating a second demo for release in Japan based on The Overture . A demo featuring the battle against the Astral Titan was featured at E3 2016: while drawing on a part of the game, the fight was tailored for the demo so it could be completed within a ten-minute window, with the full version having different victory requirements. A Japan-exclusive commercial demo dubbed Judgement Disc

2565-402: A pact with rather than simply commanding them. Due to their key role in the story, the staff chose traditional Final Fantasy summons such as Leviathan and Titan instead of creating ones unique to the game. The central theme of the world and story is "fantasy based on reality": the setting is based on the real world and the fantasy elements grew out of familiar settings. Realizing this aspect of

2736-417: A planned release in late 2014. According to later staff, Versus XIII was only 20-25% complete when the change of name and platform took place, with Tabata saying that the game "never really took shape". It was also stated by Tabata that the staff's efforts to fix issues with Versus XIII went on for far too long. According to staff, when Tabata arrived the production team were "exhausted and fretful" following

2907-497: A pre-determined task), was originally present in Versus XIII . A key figure in the mythos, the Goddess Etro , was originally represented in-game in a piece of artwork by Amano and was a key deity worshiped in the game world. During the transition process between Versus XIII and XV , the game "disconnected" from the mythos' core framework, existing as a thematic base for the world and story without being overtly expressed. While

3078-438: A profession although he ultimately abandoned the idea. Nomura went to vocational school to learn magazine and advertising artwork. Nomura then looked for an advertising job at a publishing company. However, he eventually applied to Square after he had seen a job advertisement with a drawing by Yoshitaka Amano . In 1991, Nomura was hired by Square and at first worked as a debugger for Final Fantasy IV . Some time later,

3249-443: A scale too great to use real-time graphics. The transition to next-generation hardware enabled the team to better realize their original vision for the game, as conveyed in the original reveal trailer. Visual Works also worked closely with the team during development of 3D modelling systems, due to their previous experiences with such technology in cutscene development. Versus XIII used an action-based combat system based primarily on

3420-474: A second wave of content. During this period, production shifted from Business Division 2 to Luminous Productions, who worked simultaneously on the post-release content and their new IP. Tabata continued overseeing development as producer, but later got steadily less interested in the project, and wanted to go ahead on "his own path" without inconveniencing anyone at Square Enix. After internal discussions, Tabata decided to leave Square Enix and form his own studio. It

3591-498: A single game. Naora was the art director for Crystal Conquest . Naora outlined the focus of the Final Fantasy X Remaster from an artistic perspective as being color correction , fixing errors and increasing the games resolution. Having worked on the game since its title was changed, Naora was very excited and nervous creating a trailer for the game to appear on copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD . Naora delivered

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3762-540: A special event the following year. Another announcement from that time was that Tabata was aiming for a simultaneous worldwide release, a first for the Final Fantasy series. This was later clarified by Tabata at the 2016 Taipei Game Show: Square Enix was aiming to release the game within the same time period across the world, although there might be minor variations depending on regions. The special event, called "Uncovered: Final Fantasy XV ", took place on March 30 at

3933-450: A stylized and chibi way and came up with the idea for the " Limit Break " attacks. He also took part in the making of the story and had a hand in plot elements such as Aerith 's death. In 1998, Nomura worked on both Parasite Eve and Brave Fencer Musashi . He then designed characters and monsters for Final Fantasy VIII in what he described as his "actual style of drawing", working alongside art director Yusuke Naora to realize

4104-491: A title change announcement could not be made in 2012, the shortening lifespan of the console caused concern for the company and team. After some trial and error, the PlayStation 3 was abandoned as lead platform in favor of a DirectX 11 -based development structure allowing easy porting to next-generation systems. Another presumed reason for the shift was due to the game's protracted development and escalating budget. The game

4275-439: A video game narrative style they were trying not to emulate. Despite this wish, the scale of XV ' s world and story would have needed multiple games to tell the entire story. To avoid turning Final Fantasy XV into a series of games, the team instead produced additional media surrounding XV , turning it into a multimedia project: while the main game could be enjoyed on its own, the other media could be used as introductions to

4446-442: Is "bonds", as represented by the relationships between Noctis and his comrades, and between protagonist Noctis Lucis Caelum and his father Regis. A key narrative element was Noctis' personal journey from prince to king. The story took place over a ten-year time period to properly portray Noctis' journey, with the characters aging appropriately. As opposed to earlier Final Fantasy games which jumped between different character groups,

4617-408: Is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". This quote was intended to evoke the atmosphere Nomura was aiming for. After its initial announcement, the title was absent from multiple gaming events for several successive years, although a video showing an extended version of the reveal trailer was released in 2007 at a fan event. Two trailers were released in 2008, including in-game footage at

4788-543: The Code Age franchise. On October 1, 2016 he announced on Twitter that he had left the company, but would continue to contribute to Square Enix games as a freelancer. Naora described the game as a "journey", and the Besaid Village from the game was heavily influenced by his trip to Bali, Indonesia , where he saw seaside towns, temples, people handing out tropical flowers, and distinctive dress. Naora worked on

4959-508: The Final Fantasy series in the same capacity with 2001's Final Fantasy X . He worked with the staff so that the characters' clothes would be identical in full motion videos and in-game scenes, unlike in Final Fantasy VIII . In February 2000, he started working as the director of Kingdom Hearts with the production team consisting of over one hundred members from both Square and Disney Interactive . Nomura first heard of

5130-630: The Kingdom Hearts series since its inception in 2002 and has been creative producer in The World Ends with You series. He has also directed the 2005 film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children , and directed Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), while coming back as creative director for the sequel Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024). Nomura's father influenced his interest in art and games early on, creating little drawings and unique Sugoroku board games for him. Nomura started drawing at

5301-731: The Bahamas , and natural locations such as a cavern in Chiba Prefecture . Insomnia, the crown city of Lucis, is specifically influenced by the Shinjuku, Tokyo area which houses the headquarters of Square Enix and which Nomura passes through every day. The highway and tunnel seen in the game are almost exact replicas of the Shuto Expressway and a tunnel in the Ginza district, respectively. The team created these by driving down

Development of Final Fantasy XV - Misplaced Pages Continue

5472-478: The Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy X-2 . For the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries which featured new titles based on Final Fantasy VII , Nomura was once again the character designer. A sequel to Kingdom Hearts started development around the completion of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix , an international version which added more foreshadowing elements regarding

5643-521: The Kingdom Hearts battle system. Gameplay elements from third-person shooters were also to have been incorporated. Character movement was designed to be fast-paced. During earlier gameplay trailers, the pace of gameplay was deliberately slowed down so viewers could have a better view of events. In addition to Noctis, his companions were also controllable, each harnessing unique weapons and all being able to enter and control mechs and airships. Noctis

5814-404: The Kingdom Hearts games. When designing characters, Nomura wants their names and outfits to be related with their personalities. An example occurs in Final Fantasy X where the protagonist Tidus was given a colorful uniform in order to reflect his cheerful personality and to contrast with the previous moody Final Fantasy characters. His name as well as Yuna 's, another character appearing in

5985-549: The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles , California , hosted by internet celebrities Greg Miller and Tim Gettys. The event was livestreamed worldwide. Free limited tickets for the event were made available on February 5 for North American residents. By the next day, all tickets had been claimed. Its former release date, September 30, was announced on the first day of the event. According to Tabata, this release date

6156-538: The Tokyo Game Show (TGS). Footage of navigation was shown at TGS the following year in a closed theater. Its appearance at E3 2010 was apparently prevented due to multiple technical issues. Its final appearance as Versus XIII was at a Square Enix Press Conference in January 2011, appearing alongside other video games then in production. Because of its sporadic appearances in the public eye and its absence after

6327-480: The 2011 event, industry commentators labeled Final Fantasy XV as vaporware while it was still known as Versus XIII . In June 2012, there were rumors that the game had been cancelled, but those were swiftly refuted by Wada. After that, further rumors emerged claiming that it had either been quietly cancelled, or renamed and shifted to another platform during development. Its name and platform change were officially announced at E3 2013, with further trailers showcasing

6498-564: The Crystal Tools hardware as an extension of the technology of the previous gaming generation. During 2010, Nomura revealed that the team were using real world-based physical calculations to determine weather and cloud behavior in-game. By 2011, the game was no longer using Crystal Tools, and instead used a specially designed proprietary gameplay engine combined by lighting technology from Luminous Engine , an engine built for eighth-generation gaming hardware . The focus on realism influenced

6669-540: The English indie rock band Florence and the Machine and sung by the band's leader Florence Welch . In addition to "Stand by Me", Florence and the Machine created two original songs inspired by the world and story of XV : "Too Much Is Never Enough" and "I Will Be". For the game's additional media, the music was handled by other composers such as John R. Graham , Yasuhisa Inoue and Susumi Akizuki. Music for later content

6840-454: The adjustments were being decided upon, it was chosen to keep the mythos as part of XV , as much of the world was built upon it and would lose a lot of its substance if removed entirely. Instead, the team chose to adjust the mythos to fit the game's modern setting. Specific terminology such as "l'Cie" was removed so the game would retain an individual identity and introduce the concepts in an understandable way. A common theme carried over into XV

7011-464: The age of three years and developed his own Sugoroku games during his elementary school years. As a child, he spent much of his free time playing baseball, swimming, fishing and building fortresses. When he was in middle school, his father told him that an era of computers would come and bought him his own computer. Nomura played Legends of Star Arthur: Planet Mephius on it and started creating his own video games by learning programming . He first tried

Development of Final Fantasy XV - Misplaced Pages Continue

7182-517: The amount of storage available in the previous generation. During the transition from Versus XIII to XV and the optimization of the Luminous Engine for game development, the team created a conceptual environment using a prototype engine environment called "Ebony". After the initial reveal, the team ran into difficulties with the new hardware, prompting them to contact HexaDrive due to their experience with high-spec gaming hardware. To solve

7353-495: The backstory of antagonist Ardyn Izunia , was released on February 12, 2019. To promote the game, and also forming part of the collection, a mobile app titled Justice Monsters Five was developed. Based on an arcade-style mini-game from XV , it used gameplay similar to the Monster Strike series and incorporated classic Final Fantasy monsters. Justice Monsters Five was released on August 30 for mobile platforms, and

7524-411: The battle system was a slimmed-down version of what was planned for the final game, using the originally planned preset weapon deck feature. The character Cindy was also included. A summon with a simplified method of acquirement was also put into the game: originally intended to be Titan, it was replaced with Ramuh due to the former being a key character in the story. After TGS 2014, where Episode Duscae

7695-431: The changes. The game's ending was left deliberately ambiguous so players could imagine what came next. The concept of reaper -worship from the original scenario was toned down, as it would have been a violation of age-rating criteria in some countries; explicit references to those elements were replaced with the general impression of black being a special color for the main cast and their home country. The game's main theme

7866-449: The character interaction, and the alteration of Cindy's name from the original "Cidney". In an interview with Famitsu during Gamescom, Tabata revealed that the main reason for the delays in XV ' s release were related to the game's localization and debugging, as the team wanted to bring the game out in the west close to its Japanese release. The decision for a simultaneous release meant

8037-438: The characters and environment. The demo included English and Japanese audio for all regions. The demo released in all regions alongside the physical and digital releases of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD . The physical version was exclusive to day-one editions of Type-0 HD , while the digital version was valid for two months after purchase. The code had to be redeemed within one year of purchase. While players could save their progress in

8208-421: The choice of making Noctis the only playable character. Versus XIII was originally announced at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) through a CGI trailer. The trailer, which showed Noctis advancing on a group of enemy soldiers, was created by Visual Works as a representation of what the development team were aiming for. The trailer also featured a quote from William Shakespeare 's Hamlet : "[There]

8379-588: The company's staff was divided and he was placed in the team in charge of Final Fantasy . After he had received some training by artist Tetsuya Takahashi , Nomura designed the monsters for Final Fantasy V . At that time, each Final Fantasy developer had their own plan book as a compilation of ideas to present to the director of a game. While the others typed their plan books at the computer and then printed them out, Nomura wrote his by hand and attached many drawings which impressed director Hironobu Sakaguchi and event planner Yoshinori Kitase . Nomura then became

8550-483: The content of XV , first released on June 28, 2017. Titled Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire and developed by Machine Zone's subsidiary Epic Action, the game involves players taking the role of characters from XV and fighting other player armies in real-time battles for control of the Crystal. The game's year of release was officially announced at the 2015 PAX Prime event, with its release date set to be revealed at

8721-499: The context of a video game. Kingsglaive was a joined production shared between the original staff of Advent Children and multiple Western companies including Digic Pictures , who had worked on the graphics for the Assassin's Creed series; and Image Engine , who had worked on multiple films including Jurassic World and the television series Game of Thrones . While similar in appearance to Advent Children , Kingsglaive had

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8892-468: The core Final Fantasy development team. In 2018, the Final Fantasy XV team was incorporated into Luminous Productions , a new subsidiary led by Tabata who continued to work on both an untitled AAA project and post-release content for Final Fantasy XV . Along with bringing in staff members from other sections of the company, they also recruited help from other development studios: HexaDrive

9063-486: The creation of the non-playable characters . In 2008, he was the character designer of Dissidia Final Fantasy . The game was originally envisioned by Nomura as a Kingdom Hearts spin-off featuring a cast of Disney characters. He later felt uncomfortable with the Disney characters fighting each other and instead opted to use Final Fantasy characters. Nomura was responsible for the character designs, which changed much of

9234-416: The critically acclaimed Final Fantasy VII Remake . He worked as the director of the project, character designer, and concept designer. After a successful launch, Nomura would go on to work on downloadable content for the game called "intermission", which released in 2021. During this, he was also working on the next installation, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth . Work for that project began in 2019, however, it

9405-514: The decision to incorporate the more advanced lighting technology, while the specially designed engine had a limited area of use. The troubles with the original engine and its transition was a factor in the title's prolonged production. The planned scale of the open world increased so much that the older technology eventually became obsolete as it was restricting the developers. The need to create new technology to cope with these problems further added to initial development difficulties. The original plan

9576-478: The demo, save data could not be carried over to the main game. Despite this, the team announced its intention to create a bonus for those who purchased the demo. A patch titled Episode Duscae 2.0 was released in June 2015, which included enhancements for the camera and controls, fixes for bugs, and adjustments to gameplay. The demo ran on Version 1.5 of Luminous Studio. Sequels to Final Fantasy XV were hinted at with

9747-464: The design was adding fantastic flourishes while keeping it from being garish. Another recurring Final Fantasy creature, the Moogle , was originally present in Versus XIII , and was going to be similar in design to its Final Fantasy Type-0 incarnation. Moogles were initially dropped from XV ; they were retained after a Twitter poll in November 2015, where fans requested that Moogles be included. Due to

9918-472: The development team on its use. According to Tabata, the new logo signified the beginning of a new journey, and also representing the game's development since it was known as Versus XIII . The stories from the past entries in the Final Fantasy series are not exactly as I would have done, but that's as it should be because I didn't direct them. My only concern in terms of Versus XIII is that [ Final Fantasy ] always talks about human emotion and psychologies in

10089-412: The development team responsible for the Kingdom Hearts series as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, although Nomura had created the game concept some years prior. Versus XIII was defined by Nomura as the dark side of XIII , which was emphasized by the game's title. In 2008, it was reported that development was put on hold so the team could complete Final Fantasy XIII . This information was later clarified as

10260-490: The different sides of the narrative. Tetsuya Nomura Tetsuya Nomura ( 野村 哲也 , Nomura Tetsuya , born October 8, 1970) is a Japanese video game artist , designer, producer, and director working for Square Enix . He was hired by Square initially as a monster designer for Final Fantasy V (1992), before being shifted towards secondary character designer alongside Yoshitaka Amano for Final Fantasy VI (1994). Final Fantasy VII (1997) had him working in

10431-569: The director of Final Fantasy Type-0 , then was moved to other projects and replaced as full director by Tabata. Saori Itamuro became the new scriptwriter, using Nojima's original scenario as a base for the new work. Kitase left as co-producer, while Yusuke Naora , Isamu Kamikokuryo , and many artists involved in the development of Type-0 were involved. Non-Japanese staff included character designer Roberto Ferrari, game designer Prasert Prasertvithyakarn, and party interaction designer Wan Hazmer. The staff as formed in 2012, not counting later additions,

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10602-430: The early issues, which drew public attention with the release of Episode Duscae , was Noctis' English voice actor. In Episode Duscae , his voice was pitched rather low, making the character seem older and less energetic than his Japanese counterpart. This was explained as being due to tight scheduling removing the opportunity for Tabata to catch the issue and re-record before it was time for release. After Episode Duscae ,

10773-451: The environment. For XV , it was decided to create an advanced hybrid of these basic behavioral AI functions. Due to the way Luminous Studio's staff was structured, the team first needed to develop an easy-to-understand tool for managing and developing the AI. This tool was dubbed the "Luminous AI Graph", which represented the multi-layered construction of an AI. The amount of effort put into the AI

10944-411: The event. Between May and November 2015, the publicity was deliberately kept low-key so staff could focus on completing the pre-beta version of the game. Once done, XV became playable in its entirety, enabling developers to get a full view of the product for the final stages of development and testing. Production on the beta version and progression to the debugging phase began in 2016. The master version,

11115-412: The face, 300 for the hair, and 150 for the body. A bone-based physical simulation technology was applied so that clothing would react to the body's movements. The polygon count for character hair was estimated as 20,000, the same number used in an entire character in last-generation games. All of these were achievable due to the fact that the eighth-generation console hardware had approximately sixteen times

11286-413: The fact that it was being actively developed. It was named after one of the regions in the game. The demo is set during the opening segment of XV , where the party temporarily lose their car and must gather funds for its repair by taking on jobs in the region. Gameplay and main story elements were tailored for a demo experience. One of the features left out was the ability for players to rent Chocobos, while

11457-595: The film. The same occurs within the Kingdom Hearts series where the scenes that show unknown characters are left to the player's imagination until the following scene reveals it. Nomura received the "Excellence in Visual Arts" award by the International Game Developers Association for his work on the first Kingdom Hearts game , alongside Shinji Hashimoto . In IGN 's "The Top 100 Video Game Creators of all Time" Nomura

11628-438: The form of players changing "battle modes" to alter the speed and complexity of battles. A major element added to the game was Prompto Argentum 's ability to take photographs. As the character had garnered negative feedback from players, Tabata wanted to make the character more useful and appealing to players, and so it was incorporated into the game so players could chronicle their journey. The inclusion of an airship function into

11799-493: The game Code Age Commanders for three years, in cooperation with a group he assembled for this project called "War Head". The game was conceived to be a new game, unlike Final Fantasy , and could be made into a game for the PlayStation 2 , a manga, and a cell phone game. Some of the drawing is done by Naora himself. In order to simulate the nature of two handed combat, multiple buttons are utilized in combat. The game

11970-514: The game and responses to fan questions. According to Tabata, the ATRs were created to help fans left confused by the game's change of platform and title, along with establishing a two-way communication with the fanbase. During 2015, official forums were created to allow the developers to receive direct feedback from fans. Starting from February 12, the Japanese forums were discontinued and replaced with

12141-406: The game being close to completion, it was a token inclusion that would not impact the main development. The game's original score was primarily composed and arranged by Yoko Shimomura , who was most widely known for her work on the Kingdom Hearts series and was a first-time composer for the Final Fantasy series. Working on the greater majority of the soundtrack, Shimomura was involved throughout

12312-476: The game concept released later. The trailer was again a concept piece consisting mostly of CGI rather than actual gameplay footage. Staff later stated that XV had been announced and displayed too early. The game's next official appearance was made at TGS 2014, with the announcement of its commercial demo, and a tech demo showing off the game's engine. After its reappearance, regular livestreamed shows called "Active Time Reports" (ATR) were broadcast, giving updates to

12483-468: The game continued up until the final version was released. The navigation was described after its 2014 re-reveal as "open world": Tabata later clarified that while character progression was driven by the story, the various areas within the world could be freely explored by players. He also wished for a fusion of gameplay and story similar to The Last of Us . Based on feedback from the game's first commercial demo, adjustable difficulty settings were added in

12654-516: The game during a discussion between Shinji Hashimoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi regarding the use of the character of Mickey Mouse in a video game. He was inspired to work on Kingdom Hearts by Nintendo 's platforming game Super Mario 64 . After discussing with the Disney staff, Nomura convinced them to use original characters with him as the character designer. The game's protagonist, Sora , became his favorite character he had designed so far. Following Kingdom Hearts , Nomura worked once again on

12825-416: The game focused almost entirely on the central cast, with developments concerning the supporting cast happening off-screen. This was chosen to make the main cast more compelling and create a narrative based on their point of view. In contrast to many previous Final Fantasy titles, the playable cast of XV is all-male, although women still played key roles in the story. This was influenced by Nomura's wish for

12996-449: The game had to be abandoned; a planned first-person view and the lack of a heads-up display (HUD) were scrapped because these ideas were deemed incompatible with the style of the Final Fantasy series. An overhead camera view was also considered for the open field areas, but it was decided against so the player would remain immersed. When the final Versus XIII trailer was released, the HUD

13167-400: The game in as realistic a form as possible. The Ronin was designed to resemble the traditional dress style of its namesake , with both the clothing and fabric created using descriptions from books and images of antique samurai clothing and swords. The game's mounts, recurring galliform birds called Chocobos , were designed so players would feel affection for them. The most challenging part of

13338-400: The game maps. It also enabled Nomura to start experimenting with higher facial detail for enemies such as behemoths. When the game was renamed and changed platforms, the team chose the Luminous Engine as the main game engine. The game's real-time graphics used 5,000 polygons per-frame, bringing its visual quality close to modern CGI cutscenes and to a level that would have been impossible for

13509-568: The game was quite difficult before the game's move onto eighth-generation hardware. Nomura had wanted to use a present-day setting for a Final Fantasy game ever since this idea had been considered but abandoned during the development of Final Fantasy VII . As such, some of the designs in Final Fantasy XV are based on real-world locations: among them are the districts of Tokyo , the Piazza San Marco and St Mark's Basilica in Venice ,

13680-423: The game were released on other albums of Shimomura's music, and "Somnus" was featured as downloadable content for Theatrhythm Final Fantasy . During its initial development, Versus XIII used Crystal Tools , a proprietary game engine created by Square Enix for seventh-generation gaming hardware that would be used throughout the company for multiple games, including XIII and XIV . Later, Tabata described

13851-445: The game's development cycle. The theme song of Versus XIII , "Somnus", was sung by Aundréa L. Hopkins; its lyrics were written by Nomura, which were translated and adapted into Latin by Taro Yamashita and Kazuhiro Komiya. When Versus XIII was rebranded as XV , "Somnus" was retained as an important theme, though it was replaced as the official theme song. The game's theme song is a cover of Ben E. King 's " Stand by Me ", performed by

14022-476: The game's final version. To help maximize the realism of the characters, their hair was first created by a hairstylist using a mannequin's wig, then rendered into the game using the technology of the Luminous Engine. The same technique was used for Agni's Philosophy , the engine's 2012 demo. Character movements were created using motion capture technology: the animators' movements were first captured while they wore special suits, then their actions were adjusted in

14193-488: The game's official YouTube channel and anime streaming website Crunchyroll between March and September 2016. Each episode details the backstory of Noctis from his childhood to the game's opening, along with the backstories of his companions. The first and last episodes of the anime tie in with the Platinum Demo . The anime is intended to give people a view into Noctis' mind that would have appeared incongruous within

14364-419: The game's production and designed the logo based on the game's themes. Several pieces of Amano's original artwork were retained and used in promotion when the game changed from Versus XIII to XV . In contrast to other major parts of the game, the logo artwork survived almost unchanged aside from its coloring. Amano also designed a new version of the logo that faded in during the game's ending, collaborating with

14535-529: The game, also have a common theme, the former being Okinawan for "Sun" and the latter Okinawan for "night". Various characters such as Squall Leonheart and Lulu are given multiple accessories, making the games more challenging for the programmers. When directing Advent Children , Nomura explained how the film was different from Western films due to the lack of direct answers from the plot. He added that he wants viewers to interpret certain scenes themselves and then discuss them with friends as another way to enjoy

14706-421: The graphic director of Final Fantasy VI . For this game, he conceived the characters Shadow and Setzer as well as their background stories. Their designs were reused from some of Nomura's abandoned concepts for Final Fantasy V . Following several smaller projects, Nomura was asked to be the principal character designer of Final Fantasy VII in replacement for Amano. Nomura drew the game's characters in

14877-421: The inclusion of new characters and new gameplay mechanics. For 2011's Final Fantasy XIII-2 , Nomura only created the new characters' faces as other staff members designed their clothes. Once the Kingdom Hearts coded remake was released, Nomura and his companions had already thought about creating Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance , a game that would set up the events of Kingdom Hearts III . The game

15048-408: The initial announced wish to develop a second tech demo and forming part of the " Final Fantasy XV Universe", Platinum Demo was created in two months using completed assets from the main game. First announced two months earlier in January, it was designed to showcase the game's graphics and physics, along with elements of its final combat system. Set in a dream world after Noctis is gravely wounded as

15219-410: The initial release allowed support for the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X models, featuring enhanced graphics, resolution and framerate. The English localization of XV was led by Dan Inoue. One of the aspects of the localization was using different accents to show the characters coming from different regions of the world: a cited example was Ignis Scientia , who spoke with a British accent while

15390-403: The initial work on Versus XIII , the game's development spanned approximately ten years from conception to release: despite its origins, Tabata considers Versus XIII and XV to be two separate entities. Speaking later, Tabata said that the developers were "playing it by ear", as little of the final game's content was set prior to his taking over. Both free and paid downloadable content (DLC)

15561-410: The issues faced by XV , the team used a similar development approach to Ubisoft : they created an approximate game system that they could build on and edit in real-time. Graphics and animation were developed first, followed by a cinematics editor and a system to manage events during transitions between cutscenes and gameplay. This latter element was what allowed the developers to create what would become

15732-510: The lack of human advancement outside Lucis. For the monster designs, Tabata told Hasegawa that their goal was a sense of realism equivalent to the photography of National Geographic . The first monster designed with this mindset was the Behemoth. For mystical enemies, the team went towards "throwback" designs, using popular enemy designs from the series' history. The monster designs were drawn from various sources. A difficult monster to design

15903-518: The line "A World of the Versus Epic" in the E3 2013 trailer. Nomura explained that the game had a self-contained climax and that it was the first part of an intended continued epic. He said that Square Enix was considering using online elements and developing shorter stand-alone titles to keep players interested and to avoid long waiting times for them. This was interpreted as a move of the company towards

16074-537: The localization had to happen alongside the game production, with no extra time for tweaks and corrections. In addition to being released with French and German dubs and text translation for those respective regions, it was also localized for Latin America with Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese text: this was the first time a Final Fantasy title was localized into these languages. One of

16245-468: The look and style of Amano's illustrations. In 2010, Square released Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep , a prequel of the first Kingdom Hearts that explained scenes shown in Kingdom Hearts II and its updated version. In early 2011, Square released a follow-up to Dissidia titled Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy . The game carried several ideas Nomura had ever since early development, such as

16416-422: The merger of functions to create an intelligent system, and the exchange of various elements with specific localities. For the character-AI, a major point was the coordination between the AI and character animations when responding to different situations. Different levels and styles of AI were created for different groups of non-playable characters within XV ' s world, from the main party members to NPCs around

16587-480: The more realistic approach to the game's graphics. Additionally, he wrote the character's background stories and was the battle visual director in charge of designing fight sequences. Afterwards, Nomura worked on several different projects for Square, for example as a character designer of the 1998 fighting game Ehrgeiz which also used characters from Final Fantasy VII . Nomura was the character designer for 2000s beat 'em up The Bouncer before he returned to

16758-494: The mythos for each game. Versus XIII was one of the original titles created for the subseries alongside Final Fantasy XIII , forming the core of the series around which future titles would evolve. Nomura intended Versus XIII to be a heavy departure from his lighthearted Kingdom Hearts series. He attributed this move to his "love for extremes" and explained the direction he took as closer to his personal taste and completely different from what producers had requested him to do in

16929-546: The new consoles and its new status as a mainline game: these included radical staff reshuffles, and the reevaluation of the game's content. The latter part resulted in some scenes and characters from Versus XIII being cut. Later in production, multiple other studios were brought in to help with various aspects of the game. Since its original announcement, release of information became sporadic, leading to video game journalists labeling it as vaporware and eventually to rumors of its cancellation. After its public rebranding in 2013,

17100-498: The original development of set pieces was the design of vast and seamless environments. They were meant to enable scenarios such as the player character being shot at from a great distance, or a battle which would change scenes between the outside and inside of a building. This corroborated Nomura's intended action-oriented system with more intuitive game controls. He instructed his team to study third-person shooters for reference, "not in simplistic terms, like controls or mechanics, but in

17271-423: The original story alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi , and marked his debut as the lead character designer, a capacity he would retain for several future installments of the series, as well as other Square Enix titles such as The Bouncer and The World Ends with You . He also created well-known Cactuar , Gilgamesh and Tonberry characters. Additionally, Nomura created and has led the development as director of

17442-550: The other main characters spoke with an American accent. For the game's lore, the team made a conscious effort to move away from the esoteric terminology Final Fantasy had gained a reputation for. They used understandable names like "Astral" and "Daemon". To stop the lore becoming uninteresting, the divine beings' speech was made very impersonal—such as Gentiana not using "I" or "You" during her dialogue—and using interpretive dialogue for simple concepts. Different issues raised later included Ignis' localized lines, which changed aspects of

17613-457: The party's vehicle came from Tabata's wish to keep the party in the Regalia while simulating the experience of landing an aircraft. The team experimented with enabling compatibility with virtual reality headsets, but this proved impractical as players would likely be wearing them for hours at a time due to the game's size. The game's shift during the second half of the story from an open world to

17784-403: The past. Early in development, Nomura said that the concept and thinking behind the game was unfitting for a regular numbered Final Fantasy installment, thus explaining its original status as a spin-off. His role as director of Versus XIII , in addition to other projects, was a move made following the departure of series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi from the company. Production began in 2006 by

17955-474: The pattern of previous high-budget games, but the team eventually realized that such techniques had become dated. During the later part of development, Tabata's main concern was keeping the game on schedule instead of letting the development become delayed by experimentation with the technology. Despite the protracted development, the budget was kept under strict control. A major issue was deciding what elements to carry over and what had to be changed or discarded, as

18126-425: The point where we can say that." Wishing to stop using the character of Sora temporarily, Nomura instead wanted to continue the series with games that explained different subplots. This resulted in the creation of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the Nintendo DS in 2008 which explored events that set up the story of Kingdom Hearts II . In mid-2007, Nomura mentioned a desire to create a spin-off Kingdom Hearts game on

18297-518: The previous generation's hardware. The game's native resolution was 1920 × 1080 pixels (1080p), with a frame rate of 30 frames per second: this was defined as being native to the game as opposed to upscaled games from the previous generation. For polygon models, the combined number of visible and occluded polygons was estimated as being 5,000,000. This number was approximately five times the amount of equivalent detail from last-generation games. Models used over 600 character bones: 150 bones were created for

18468-431: The production team headed by Hajime Tabata , whose previous work included Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Type-0 , was brought on board to aid production. Tabata became co-director, and was eventually promoted to sole director after Nomura was transferred to work on other projects within the company. After the transition to eighth-generation hardware, multiple changes were made so that it better suited

18639-641: The project and other key members of the original Final Fantasy VII development team, Kitase and Kazushige Nojima returning as producer and scenario writer. At E3 2015 , Final Fantasy VII Remake was announced with Nomura confirmed to be the director of the game. Nomura designed the charications in the "Torna" organization for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 . Nomura also designed bosses for the Eden raid in Final Fantasy XIV 's expansion, Shadowbringers . In April 2020, Nomura and Square Enix launched

18810-548: The project to completion. Due to the state of the project during 2012, Square Enix's then-CEO Yoichi Wada was considering cancelling outright so the team could start from scratch under Tabata's direction. Most of Tabata's team were reluctant to merge with Nomura's team due to the negative reputation of Versus XIII within the company, with Tabata taking six months to bring them all round to the idea. Tabata officially became director in December 2013. Development initially followed

18981-466: The project was already known and fans had expectations. When describing his attitude to development, Tabata described the team set-up as "horizontal", using a non-hierarchical staff structure to help speed up the exchange of information and feedback between departments. This drastic shift was unheard of for major Japanese game developers, and was met with a mixed reaction from staff: some were elated at their new freedom, while others felt downgraded. Including

19152-452: The project's collapse. Due to the growing scale of the project, talks about changing Versus XIII into the next numbered entry in the series were appearing as early as 2007. When Type-0 , originally titled Final Fantasy Agito XIII , was renamed, and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were presented to Square Enix in 2011, it was decided to shift the game onto those consoles. For a time, a PlayStation 3 version continued development, but after

19323-559: The real-world locations repeatedly during their research. The design inspirations for Niflheim ranged from the Roman Empire to pre-Germanic and Germanic civilizations. The game's theme of "fantasy based on reality" was emphasized on multiple levels in the environments, such as the blending of realism and fantasy in Insomnia, and the camping equipment, which was included through a collaboration with Coleman Company . Another factor in

19494-539: The recently announced Kingdom Hearts IV . Like the previous games, he will be in charge of the character design, the story, and the concept design. As for this project’s release date, and when more news would be shared, no release date was given, and any more visual showcases for the game will come at a later date, and not during the summer. Nomura also created art pieces for his characters on post cards which could be purchased in October 2022. He also created artwork which

19665-515: The series' plot. Nomura continued his work on the series with Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. He had originally planned to work directly on the PlayStation 2 sequel Kingdom Hearts II . However, desire from fans to play the original game on a portable console resulted in the creation of Chain of Memories which would bridge the gap between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II . Afterwards, Nomura

19836-477: The setting for newcomers. This project is being referred by Square Enix as the " Final Fantasy XV Universe". According to Tabata, the Universe is split into two halves; media designed to reach a wider audience than the game might manage alone, and additional game-related content such as ports to other hardware and DLC. A free tech demo, Platinum Demo: Final Fantasy XV was released on March 30, 2016. Birthed from

20007-422: The silence continued until its appearance at the 2014 Tokyo Game Show , at which point development and progress information was released on a regular basis. A demo for the game, Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae , was released in March 2015 with first print copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD . Promotion for the title was effectively restarted at the 2015 Gamescom . Its release was delayed due to polishing work and

20178-448: The standard weapons unless others were in place. Instead of a multi-button combo system, combat became focused on single-button combat tied to timed attacks and contextually activated special abilities, in addition to co-op attacks triggered with other members of the party. One ability that was carried over from Versus XIII to XV was Noctis's Limit Break "Armiger", where he summoned multiple weapons into battle to attack and defend; this

20349-409: The story of Final Fantasy XV , then known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII Final Fantasy Versus XIII was created as part of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy , a subseries within the Final Fantasy franchise featuring games linked by a common mythos which included Final Fantasy XIII and Type-0 : apart from the mythos, they are completely separate, and each game's staff are able to interpret

20520-450: The storyline of Episode Duscae , the project was reworked into its current form to promote immersion and entertainment. The two major parts of the " Final Fantasy XV Universe" were the original net animation series Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV and the CGI feature film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV . Brotherhood was produced by Square Enix and A-1 Pictures and was released through

20691-424: The team was not satisfied with the overall quality they were aiming for, so the extra time would be dedicated to polishing XV further. In addition, he wanted to give players without an online connection the full experience without needing a Day One patch. Tabata confirmed in a later interview that he was the one who requested the extension after the master disc had been created for mass distribution. Patches following

20862-412: The team's computer to perfect them and make minor additions like finger movements. These actions were then implemented in the game environment for the intended characters. During production, Tabata and the new development staff used experience from a failed attempt to develop an eighth-generation console sequel to Type-0 when handling the new hardware. While using Luminous Studio for games other than XV

21033-449: The time that had to be invested by the team. After the full shift onto eighth-generation platforms, multiple planned elements were influenced by the new Luminous technology: the in-game cutscene camera was optimized to work similarly to the one used in pre-rendered movies, and more environmental and gameplay elements could be included such as an increased number of destructible environments and the player character's warping to faraway spots on

21204-406: The transition as they were a core part of the initial project. When first announced, XV used the mythos of Fabula Nova Crystallis , described by Kitase as "a backdrop and starting point" for the story. For Versus XIII , Nomura decided to focus more on the world and on realistic human characters. The terminology of the mythos, including the concept of l'Cie (magically imbued warriors burdened with

21375-517: The version of the game that would be played at release, was completed in August, although further technical polishing took place after this. During its TGS 2014 presentation, the real-time demonstration footage was dubbed Final Fantasy XV: The Overture , which demonstrated the graphic capabilities in Luminous Studio and the effect of environmental changes on gameplay. While it was intended as

21546-465: The voice work was redone to better convey Noctis' personality. The localization methods also ended up backfiring due to the dialogue matching mechanism for characters causing line repetition or omission. They also needed to deal with the clash between normal dialogue and the fantastic elements, which threatened to undermine the narrative. This forced the different pieces of media to take different approaches, and some scripted character interactions to join up

21717-544: The way they create tension and mood and incorporate the action within that". This carried over into XV , with the stated aim being to distance the game structurally from XIII and its sequels, which featured divided zones rather than a large seamless world. The original inspiration behind this approach was the world design of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , with later inspirations being modern Western triple-A open world titles. The environments are divided into three different segments, with separate teams working on each:

21888-407: The wider Final Fantasy franchise. It was directed by Tetsuya Nomura , and produced by Shinji Hashimoto and Yoshinori Kitase . Nomura created the original scenario, designed the main character, and was also the original director and one of the original game designers. The CGI cutscenes were directed by Takeshi Nozue, who had previously worked on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children . The music

22059-417: The wish for a simultaneous worldwide release, something no other mainline Final Fantasy title had managed to accomplish. Cosmetic, gameplay and story-based downloadable content ( DLC ) were developed between 2016 and 2019 to fix issues raised by players and expand upon the base game. Final Fantasy XV was originally a spin-off title named Final Fantasy Versus XIII , created by Square Enix as part of

22230-406: The world map, locations in the game world, and dungeons. The dungeons were designed to be beautiful, frightening, and memorable. Specific pieces of concept art were created to represent different regions and aesthetic concepts; a single building design was used to capture the essence of Altissia's Venice-inspired atmosphere, while older car designs when compared to the party's vehicle Regalia reflected

22401-470: The world. To ensure the navigation-AI worked properly for enemies and monsters, a system dubbed the "Point Query System" (PQS) was created, which could direct and steer them in a realistic manner while avoiding collisions with objects in the environment or other moving elements. A PQS was created for each enemy type, and made small changes to their behaviors easier to implement. The decision to create high-quality reactive AI for Noctis' companions helped influence

22572-520: The young Noctis by Regis as fairy tales. The game was later made available for free for PS4 and Xbox One on March 1, 2017. In addition, another mobile game titled King's Knight: Wrath of the Dark Dragon was released in the same year. It is a remake of the 1986 game , and was available in XV as a game Noctis and his friends play. Square Enix and Machine Zone collaborated on a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for mobile devices based on

22743-546: Was a mixture of finalized and temporary elements. There were even plans for the game to have a "unique" support setup for the Sixaxis controller. Although after the game's transition there were technological and mechanical changes, the basic elements established in trailers such as Noctis' warping and weapon abilities were carried over. For XV , the battle system was dubbed the Active Cross Battle system. Noctis

22914-536: Was also decided by Luminous Productions to focus on development of their new IP, contributing to the DLC's cancellation. The company parted with Tabata on good terms, but the decision was made to cancel all but one of the subsequent DLC episodes and end post-release support for the game following that episode's 2019 release. Announced features related to the PC port such as mod support were also cancelled. While XV ' s story

23085-443: Was also the main character designer of Final Fantasy XIII . The graphics capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 compared to previous consoles allowed Nomura to use more complex elements in the character designs than before, such as Lightning's cape and detailed facial features. This in turn meant that the art team had to do much more work for each character or area than in previous games. Nomura did not take an involved role in

23256-426: Was available to all characters, but only when Noctis was a part of the party, a consideration that was closely tied to the story. A job system was in place, but it was exclusive to enemy units, with those present including dragoons and summoners. Environments outside cities also featured a day-night cycle and roaming enemies, with different enemy monsters appearing at different times of day. Several initial concepts for

23427-424: Was brought in to help with engineering the game, XPEC Entertainment helped with the design for the later sections of the game, Shanghai company Plusmile helped with the design of buildings, licensed middleware from Umbra was used to boost the game's graphics, while Streamline Studios was brought in to help with technical development. It was initially supposed, after an announcement in 2015, that Avalanche Studios

23598-406: Was brought on board to help create the game's airship mechanics. In the event, Avalanche and Square Enix did not directly collaborate: instead, Avalanche showed them their level of detail development methods, and Square Enix's internal team created the airship mechanics using that information. The image illustration and logo design was done by Yoshitaka Amano , who was brought on at the beginning of

23769-482: Was composed by Yoko Shimomura , and the script was written by regular Final Fantasy scenario writer Kazushige Nojima . Tomohiro Hasewaga was art director, the mechanical designer was Takeyuki Takeya, and the event planning director was Jun Akiyama . After the game's name and platform change in 2012, there were multiple staff reshuffles, though Shimomura, Hashimoto, Hasewaga and Nozue retained their original positions. Nomura became co-director alongside Hajime Tabata ,

23940-430: Was considered during production, the engine's technology manager Julien Merceron advised against it until it has been proven and released in a finished form. While CGI cutscenes created by dedicated Square Enix subsidiary Visual Works were present throughout its lifetime, there were far fewer than originally planned in the final game. The team instead relied on real-time cutscenes as much as possible, except for scenes with

24111-406: Was decided upon in 2013 based on projected development time and costs. In August, rumors began circulating that Final Fantasy XV had been delayed by two months. Tabata later confirmed that the game's worldwide release had been delayed to November 29: alongside the announcement was an official apology to fans for the delay. The reason he gave was that, while the game had reached fully playable form,

24282-412: Was defined by Tabata as humans chosen by the crystal placing their lives at risk. The revised cosmology drew inspiration from Japanese folklore and various Western mythologies. The game's summoned monsters, referred to as "Astrals", were designed to play integral parts in the story and world as opposed to being simple monsters to be called into battle. They were intelligent beings that Noctis needed to forge

24453-449: Was designed to appeal to the western desire for game customization. Naora took note of the popularity of Fallout 3 , and the growing differences between Japanese and Western RPGs. He then undertook to compare the two styles to appeal to both audiences. Naora developed the game "from the ground up" to appeal to both Japanese and Western audiences, and undertook extensive customer research into American gaming desires and tastes. Naora

24624-411: Was devoted to the guest and non-playable characters (NPCs); and "navigation", which determined the best route and pattern for characters and other moving elements such as enemies to travel. The tasks assigned to the meta-AI were so numerous and large that it needed to be divided into separate interconnected elements, which included implementing a hierarchical structure for task management, transitioning and

24795-444: Was directly inspired by experiences of developing games for the previous console generation: the emphasis had been put on graphics, causing the AI and other gameplay-related elements to suffer. Between the release of its commercial demo and the full release, the AI underwent further refinement. The AI functions were divided into three different categories: "meta", which governed the environment and in-game progression; "character", which

24966-475: Was eventually shut down on March 27, 2017, seven months after its initial release. A planned Windows 10 version was not released. A second promotional item was A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV , released through GameStop and EB Games in North America as a free pre-order bonus. Playing as an arcade-style beat 'em up , A King's Tale relates King Regis' exploits thirty years before the game's events, told to

25137-439: Was first announced, Tabata and the team adjusted the gameplay experience based on fan feedback. The original plan was for a large area of the worldmap that players could explore using the car. While the ability to drive the party's car was originally included, it was later cut as Tabata feared that the feature would be too new for older fans of the series, who might have mistaken XV for "a driving game". The team decided to focus on

25308-471: Was handled by Yoshitaka Suzuki; guest composers were brought in for major story expansions, including Keiichi Okabe , Naoshi Mizuta , Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu . The game's soundtrack was released on December 21, 2016, with multiple editions being created. The three songs by Florence and the Machine were released under the banner title "Songs from Final Fantasy XV " as digital singles on August 12 for iTunes , Google Play and Spotify . Tracks from

25479-506: Was initially seen in the original trailer for XV , and later in both the demo and the final game. Noctis was to have been the only character in the world of XV to wield magic, but as this would not have worked from a gameplay perspective, the team created a story-related pretext that allowed other characters to wield magic. After the demo's release, the Cross-Link system was improved and other systems were put into place. Polishing work on

25650-411: Was listed at number 84. Yusuke Naora Yusuke Naora ( 直良 有祐 , Naora Yūsuke ) (born January 9, 1971) is a Japanese video game art director and character designer who worked for Square Enix (formerly Square ). A former member of Toaplan , Naora served as the art director for several Final Fantasy and Compilation of Final Fantasy VII titles. He also served as the producer of

25821-487: Was made the only player-controlled character, with the others being relegated to command functions governed by the game's artificial intelligence (AI). The team experimented with a multi-character battle system, but eventually decided that it presented too many development difficulties. Noctis' weapons were to be arranged in a deck, and contextually activated in combat. Later, this was changed so that weapon-switching could be done freely during battle, with special attacks using

25992-411: Was made up of the combined Final Fantasy XV and Type-0 development teams. By 2014, between 200 and 300 people were working on the game. From 2006 to 2013, Final Fantasy XV was developed by what was then Square Enix 1st Production Department. In the wake of extensive business restructuring in 2013, development was transferred to the newly formed Business Division 2, headed by Tabata and incorporating

26163-406: Was on a staff of three for Type-0 in 2006, but development began in 2008 due to ongoing work on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII , and even then not fully until 2009 due to The 3rd Birthday . Naora worked to create the backstory for the game, and the built up the fourteen characters life stories. He developed the country designs and the main game visuals. It was the longest he had ever worked on

26334-558: Was one of the core team members for the game's engine. Miyake, whose reputation designing quality AI had landed him the position, had an initial concept of creating an AI that would learn and memorize new actions, creating a smooth flow through the various steps it needed to take to make a smoother and more advanced experience. At the start of its development, the developers used the two standard "classic" designs for AIs for reference: behavior-based, which revolved around adaptation and decision making, and state-based, which made decisions based on

26505-423: Was planned as early as April 2016. The main aim was to make players feel they had made a good purchase with the base game. Full production began after the main game was completed in November 2016. Square Enix revealed that the DLC was not content cut from the game itself, but original content to add new experiences for players. Reception of the first wave of story-based DLC was so strong that the team decided to create

26676-608: Was rebranded as Final Fantasy XV and began development in this form in July 2012. A proposal to turn XV into a musical after Nomura watched the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables was vetoed by the higher-ups at Square Enix. At the beginning of development for Final Fantasy XV , the new team reviewed the content of Versus XIII and decided what could be sensibly carried over to the new project. While many design elements were retained, some needed to be changed or removed. Tabata's new position as co-director and eventually as director

26847-502: Was rebranded as Final Fantasy XV and transferred over to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One . The PlayStation 3 version, which was originally built using the company's proprietary Crystal Tools game engine , was abandoned due to concerns about the platform's shortening life cycle. Its engine was changed to the Luminous Engine , custom-built by Square Enix for eighth-generation gaming hardware . After its change of platforms,

27018-426: Was related to this change. The separate engine, gameplay, graphics and design sections of the team were merged into one unit to help with development. Nomura remained as co-director alongside Tabata so the project could remain as true to the original vision as possible, after which he was reassigned to other projects within the company including Kingdom Hearts III , while Tabata took up full directorial duties to bring

27189-473: Was released for the Nintendo 3DS owing to the team's positive reaction to the console's quality. Nomura confirmed that he would be considering what he called an "HD Technical Test" in order to commemorate the series' tenth anniversary and to entice players new to the series. This occurred on March 3, 2012 in the form of a premiere event where footage from the game, including its full CGI introduction sequence,

27360-425: Was released in 2005, resolving the elements foreshadowed in the first game's secret ending. As a result of being set a year after previous titles, Nomura was careful to make the plot accessible to newcomers. After Square Enix had finished development of the updated version Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix , Nomura was approached by Disney which expressed interest in a sequel. He said "We have various ideas, but we're not at

27531-411: Was released on November 11. Spanning the game's events up to the middle of the first chapter, it was designed to allow players to judge the game's merits. The game also received an international demo titled Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae . The idea behind Episode Duscae was to give players a personal look at the game due to its long absence from the public eye, as well as demonstrate its gameplay and

27702-401: Was revealed in an interview with him that progress for the game would be shown in the year 2022. As for a specific date on when it would be shown, or a release date for the project, one was not announced. He would begin working on it as the creative director (the person in charge of the creative vision for the game), as well as the concept designer and the character designer. He is also working on

27873-642: Was showcased to celebrate the game's release. In May 2012, Nomura revealed he was working as the director of a new Kingdom Hearts game that had yet to be announced by Square Enix. He was directing Final Fantasy XV which originally entered production as Final Fantasy Versus XIII shortly before its announcement in May 2006. Nomura left his position of director on Final Fantasy XV following "changes in development structure" by Square Enix in December 2013. After his departure from Final Fantasy XV , development of Final Fantasy VII Remake began, with Nomura directing

28044-444: Was similar to other entries, Nomura wanted to create more realistic characters. He wanted to make XV "about men in the real world", including less fantasy elements, describing it as the darkest entry in the series. From 2010 onwards, the story was undergoing frequent revisions. When Versus XIII became XV , multiple aspects were changed, including the removal of story sequences and the redesigning of characters. The most notable change

28215-577: Was the Catoblepas, one of the larger monsters; particular attention to detail was given to the head and legs, as they were the most visible areas to players. The Mesmenir, which was raised as an example of the balance between fantasy and realism, was designed with a horse-like body along with a horn inspired by the appendages on seahorses . The Goblins and Naga were not given an original design, instead being taken directly from their original artwork by Amano for earlier Final Fantasy games and inserted into

28386-473: Was the beginning of its official marketing campaign leading up to further announcements. As part of the marketing, the game was distanced from the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries, as it would have placed symbolic limits upon their target audience. The game's minimal showing at the event caused a negative reaction from fans, with Tabata stating that Square Enix underestimated the importance of

28557-446: Was the director and lyricist for the CGI animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which was released in 2005 in Japan. This marked his film debut, and he redesigned the characters as well. Nomura joined the film's crew after producer Yoshinori Kitase called him and eventually became the director because of his attachment to the character of Cloud Strife . He split the role of directing with Takeshi Nozue. Kingdom Hearts II

28728-413: Was the only character with access to all weapon types within the game (including swords, axes, guns, lances and others), with the current selection of weapons leading to different combos . Group attacks could not be manually triggered, but party members would team up automatically for a "super attack". In addition, attacks could be chained together by players switching between characters during battle. Magic

28899-403: Was the replacement of original heroine Stella Nox Fleuret with the similarly-named Lunafreya . Voice actor Tatsuhisa Suzuki later stated that two thirds of the planned script ended up being cut from the game. When consulted over the proposed changes, Nojima said that he would be content as long as the overall concept remained faithful to the original, giving the team the needed confidence to make

29070-421: Was to have interactive real-time event scenes. Nomura felt that regular storytelling cutscenes in other games interrupted gameplay and caused players to skip them. Furthermore, the development frame could theoretically be shortened as there was no need to create cutscenes-exclusive high-polygon character models. However, seamless transitions of these events into the gameplay were hard to achieve and instead increased

29241-408: Was used to introduce Kingdom Hearts IV , which displayed many of the characters he has created through the games long timespan. Nomura considers Yoshitaka Amano one of his biggest inspirations when doing artwork. His four "seniors" Hironobu Sakaguchi , Yoshinori Kitase , Hiroyuki Ito and Tetsuya Takahashi were also described as major influences. He even compared Sakaguchi to something "like

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