Final Fantasy XV (previously Versus XIII)

The game centered about death, ghosts and hallucination/dreams. Noctis killed the female protagonist before the game started but he didn't remember. Ardyn was Noctis ancestor and he was responsible of the crystals disappearing over time (the only one left was Lucis crystal). Regis died in front of Noctis because his bodyguards betrayed him. The protagonists had to leave the capital because their nation lost the war.

The game didn't focus on summons that much (they still existed) and instead there were actual gods which didn't appear physically. One of the gods was the main antagonist of the first FF game. Each nation was inspired by a different capital of the world. The empire was using ghosts as weapons. Ravus wanted to kill Noctis for having killed her sister. The game ended in another dimension which was supposed to be their version of the after-life.

The end part of the game was supposed to be bigger. I know for a fact that dark world Lestallum was finished. Old Iris was also featured in some scenes. Cindy too (and I also recall them not wanting to change the Cindy design even though it was problematic because her older design implied character development).

dk about some of you guys but reading 4chan, for me, is confusing as fuck and hard to follow.

So here are all his responses. You don't have the question being asked for context but you can get the idea of what was asked based on how he is responding:

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The game had to be released before this year ended period. It was a contract thing and that was set in stone before development with the new director started. That's why the last months of working in the game were painful (and I could not imagine how July-October were for my mates).

Sort of. Last year the game story got rewritten because fans kept asking to play as Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto so they had to insert playable chapters for those characters into the narrative, but since we didn't have time to work on them, the decision to release them as downloads were made from the get go.

I know that there are some game levels, scenes and options that were cut because we couldn't finish them in time. I don't know if they will be released as downloads, but I hope they will.

I think the overall feeling towards how the game turned out is "we could have done more". The team literally ran out of time. There were such cool concepts and stuff that were left unfinished because we knew that they weren't going to make the release date. However, the team is pretty happy to have worked on the game and they didn't feel like they wasted their time. Now I'm sure they will continue to work on the game and improve it to match their vision.

The game IS unfinished. The game was delayed because the team felt like it would get destroyed by critics if released in the state it was in July and it was a last minute decision to delay it.

Most of the development time centered around the Lucis area. The later parts of the game were also supposed to have (smaller) areas for the characters to explore, but they weren't finished.

One of the main characters was called Ringo a lot by some people in the team. Guess who is it?

On the FF part. It kind of was mandatory to play the classic FF while working on this game, so I grew love for them. They are neat and I wish I had played some of them earlier.

Some of it, yeah I'm sure they can release it later as downloads or repurpose the assets. But I fear that some levels are not going to be released since they wouldn't fit with the rewritten story.

I have to agree that the game was too ambitious for the development time available to work on it.

I don't think that type of material gets to leak, but who knows?

don't know the whole story about Versus XIII but I heard teammates talk about some details and I also asked about some stuff, so if you want to know something maybe I can answer it.

In my opinion, the only problem with the development process is that we didn't have time and sometimes we spent development time creating stuff that wasn't part of the actual game just for promotional material. I understand that it needs to be done for the PR team, tho. Overall, I think the game turned out to be okay and I'm pretty proud to have worked on it.

I didn't get fired, my contract didn't get renewed.

I didn't solve any problem per se, but the porting to console system process got on my nerves.

They respect the game and I haven't heard anything bad about the game other than it disappointed the fans and that some of the design choices were very questionable.

At the end of the game, you say? I think it was supposed to be left open for interpretation. If I recall correctly, they weren't suppose to have any death scene or anything so I assume they are alive.

I'm at a negotiation process right now again with a former employer.

What Izunia? If you mean the Izunia from a thousand years ago, that is Noctis' ancestor.

No but we used material (assets, concept arts, etc) to work on the game.

Sorry for answering late dudes, the thread is moving fast.

As I said, the focus of most of the development time ended up being the Lucis area so the later parts of the game had a lot of cut content that wasn't ready. However, as far as I know, the fact that the empire is completely in chaos once you get to it never changed.

They are about the party members and they introduce new mechanics built around them. But work on them barely started before I left.

In regards to the Solheim region, we never worked on it. It wasn't cut, so I guess it didn't fit the story the game was trying to tell.

Talking about the Leviathan level, I remember the level design being a bit different last year and it had to be sort of redesigned because it didn't run well and the engine was having problems.

I'm probably wrong about this since I'm not that familiar to plot terms and stuff from the 13 universe but I think more than one crystal existed in the game and that each crystal had a family which acted as bodyguards. Noctis was part of the Lucis family and the heroine was part of the other family. And the game had a lot to do with death so Noctis was continously using the weapons of dead family members.

When I was told that a certain level (snowy area with Shiva statue) was going to get deleted anyway after working on it for weeks nonstop and then having to work on a bootleg version for that level.

The team had to keep a lot of things from the past projects because the former director shared details about them. I assume Ravus was one of those things that had to be kept because details about him were previously announced.

However, I have to say that the story had to be partly rewritten last year (after the movie had entered full production) so that's why that character might have inconsistencies between the game and film.

I don't know about that but I would buy the game now and then buy the download content instead of waiting.

I heard that the team had to change and delete certain scenes about her because they portrayed her in a way that would have been criticized nowadays. And like what happened with everything else, it seems like her role in the story wasn't able to get fixed before release.

Good thing you ask that because I remember stories about the people in charge of the team wanting to change the designs of the main protagonists and a bunch of contractual problems surfacing or something like that. To sum up: the decision to have the characters designed this way was made a long time ago and they had to use those designs for a large part of the game.

Actually, some members expected harshed results because there wasn't enough confidence that his vision for the game was shared by everyone. As far as I know, the game is succeeding expectations.

There were references to the heroine having been abused by other characters, some scenes would have featured Luna crying because of her health and there were also mentions of her goal in life being meeting the male protagonist's expectations/objectives, which the team considered that were going to be problematic since the game had been carrying a bad reputation because of the way they portrayed female characters.

The game centered about death, ghosts and hallucination/dreams. Noctis killed the female protagonist before the game started but he didn't remember. Ardyn was Noctis ancestor and he was responsible of the crystals disappearing over time (the only one left was Lucis crystal). Regis died in front of Noctis because his bodyguards betrayed him. The protagonists had to leave the capital because their nation lost the war.

The game didn't focus on summons that much (they still existed) and instead there were actual gods which didn't appear physically. One of the gods was the main antagonist of the first FF game. Each nation was inspired by a different capital of the world. The empire was using ghosts as weapons. Ravus wanted to kill Noctis for having killed her sister. The game ended in another dimension which was supposed to be their version of the after-life.

It's hard to remember every detail.

As far as I know, the next game from the team is not planned to use this engine.

\Yeah, that part of the game remained over time.

I liked him and he's an excellent professional. He gets job done at very difficult circustamnces. The engine didn't adapt well to consoles and had limitations. I'm proud to have worked on the game but I think the company should have given it more development time. I don't know about FF 16. There were a lot of designs and concepts scrapped, some of them by Ferrari, yeah.

There wasn't any character model for that outfit so I don't know.

There was concepts for a city that looked like old London with british bridges and architecture, I don't know about the rest.

The artwork used for the Gralea capital in the game was taken straight out of the Versus project, so I guess it remained the same. The throne room however was different and the Emperor sat there waiting for

The end part of the game was supposed to be bigger. I know for a fact that dark world Lestallum was finished. Old Iris was also featured in some scenes. Cindy too (and I also recall them not wanting to change the Cindy design even though it was problematic because her older design implied character development).

There was supposed to be a small dungeon in Tenebrae which also got cut. If I recall correctly, the invasion didn't begin until the protagonists entered the city.

I haven't heard anything about the former director, but the project needed to change directors because the company needed a mainline game to be shipped in 2016 which appealed to mainstream trends and they trusted Tabata to do it.

If you mean why is that chapter inspired by survival horror elements, the team thought it was going to be a good change of pace that would build momentum. Seems like the level failed to deliver and annoyed players, which I understand.

I don't know, the only DLC episodes planned when I left were playable levels for the three friends.

I don't know, but it will happen. Give it a year or two?

The game has had barely 3 years of actual development time.

As far as I know, the game started as one single game, then the story got expanded more and the former director wanted to divide it into parts, but then it was condensed again as one single game by the new team.

I don't think any of my mates read the original script. If you mean the 2015 script for FF 15, then yeah, most of us know what changed in the story and world design.

That stuff was cut but they will have to rewrite and re voice those scenes since I assume they are not entirely compatible narrative wise with what the final game showed.

I think one of the concepts behind the multiplayer was a scoring system based on exploring dungeons or killing enemies with multiple people.

Well, the first stop after Altissia had an (smaller) open world area and you could drive the car alone. There was a level leading up to when you encounter the Shiva statue. The dark world section of the game featured more enviroments, you encountered each party member in different locations and you could explore part of Lestallum. The final boss (which was another Ardyn form) got cut early this year. The Tenebrae invasion happened after the protagonist entered the city and you got to explore a very small section of the city and Luna's chamber. Scenes that featured Luna got cut because they were considered to be problematic. Cor got written out of the last half of the story since it made no sense for him to show up (he was Noctis companion during the small open area after Altissia).

I don't know about this Versus XV thing but I highly doubt it's true. The only games being developed around FF 15 are for mobile last time I heard, so it might be one of them, but like I said, I highly doubt it.

I don't think they will make the world of ruin levels that were unfinished explorable unless there is more story dlc planned. I doubt they will release the Luna scenes since the response would not be good, but the deleted scenes about the empire might get released.

Like I said, Luna was featured in more scenes but they got cut. The original Leviathan fight combined interiors and exteriors and many enemies on screen, Luna also appeared. Like I said earlier, the final form for Ardyn was cut early this year. I haven't heard anything from the strategy guide but it might not have updated information about the story.

Guys, I got to go! I spent some minutes trying to answer to all of you, I might come back at a later time. I hope you had a great time with the game and those who didn't like it at least understand that people tried their best for year to deliver a good product.

Until next time!