Final Fantasy XV, the next game in Square Enix's storied RPG series, turned 10 years old over the weekend. That's right---the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game, slated for release on September 30, was announced at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles on May 8, 2006.
Originally titled Final Fantasy Versus XIII, the game was pitched as an action-oriented spin-off set in the same universe as, but otherwise mostly unrelated to, Final Fantasy XIII---which itself was announced on that day, as well. To put this in perspective: 2006 was the year that the PlayStation 3 and Wii launched. Nintendo still published Game Boy Advance games. The year's big shooter was Call of Duty 3.
Two years later, with neither game in sight, Square Enix admitted that it was in a holding pattern on Versus XIII and that some of its team members had actually moved over to help get the main XIII game out the door in a somewhat timely fashion. (It managed to squeak out just before the end of 2009 in Japan.)
In the years to come, Square Enix would occasionally release some bit of news here and there about Final Fantasy Versus XIII---a new trailer here, a short glimpse of prototype gameplay there---but never anything substantial. Meanwhile, two storyline sequels to Final Fantasy XIII were started and finished during that same period of time.
"Time again for another gentle reminder from Final Fantasy Versus XIII producer Tetsuya Nomura that if you were looking forward to playing his game you should probably just relax, take a deep breath, go do something else, maybe get married and pop out a couple of kids, try to just forget about it and you can probably play it after you send them off to their first day of preschool," I wrote in 2010, in a totally egregious bit of hyperbole that turned out to be entirely true.
At E3 in 2013, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy Versus XIII would be promoted from spinoff to mainline status and given the title of Final Fantasy XV, sort of like Ramsay Snow becoming Ramsay Bolton. It was also shifted from PlayStation 3 exclusivity to a multi-platform release on next-gen consoles.
Anyway, all of that seems nearly behind us, as Final Fantasy XV seems like a lock for September 30. The question of whether it is going to be worth the wait is still very much open. But it'll be good to actually have it available after its Duke Nukem Forever-esque reign as the Crown Prince of Vaporware.
