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The rumored future of Final Fantasy games features in this edition of the Squenix Tidbits, and not all of it is awesome. Of course, most people would probably say that is of zero surprise, but, that's how it is.

Let's get the bad news out of the way: Kotaku reports today that Final Fantasy Versus XIII is finally dead; while the reporting is mostly conjecture at this point, it's pretty reasonable conjecture given the utter lack of visible progress on offer from Squenix. The real question, beyond the simple matter of the game dying, is when it died. Has the company been pouring resources into the development until very recently, or was it quitely shelved a long time ago? The answer to that question might determine what resources are available for other games, which is important due to the widespread notion that the flagship series is worth next to nothing these days. Perhaps having more people available could help.

The next rumor is that Final Fantasy XV is going to be an open world game, in the style of Final Fantasy XII. On top of that, the Squenix source quoted indicates that the game's already been in some level of production for four years, with full development kicking off in January 2010, will have a combat system that calls back to both Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story, and will have cities that not only really exist but are populated by crowds of people, not just a few "important" townsfolk. Along with these points, it's also rumored that the game will be released for every platform available in the release generation. Given that the game hasn't even been unveiled officially yet, it would stand to reason that this would include the next offerings from Microsoft and Sony, as well as possibly even the WiiU.

The Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary event is coming up at the end of August, running from 31 August to 2 September. The first day will be for the press and some selected members of the Japanese Square Enix Members site, with the last two days open to the public. While this will obviously have massive amounts of Final Fantasy nostalgia, given the nature of the event, the company is looking to show the future of the franchise at the same time, with events to discuss more of the next aspect of the Final Fantasy XIII series, more information about Final Fantasy XIV 2.0, and a live recording of a Square Enix podcast dedicated to the future of the Final Fantasy series. With this event and the Tokyo Game Show both on the radar, a lot of questions about what's next for Final Fantasy might become resolved very soon.

Source: Kotaku, Gameranx, andriasang

It's for the best if it's true I think. Versus was rapidly becoming another Duke Nukem Forever, and for all that it was trying to be... it's still unclear exactly what that was, isn't it? All they had was a goal of being "different" from other FFs and some screenshots, and even after six years that's all they ever had.

At the very least, this is for the best. Letting the FF13 brand as a whole maybe die off and conclude with a possible FF13-3 is probably also for the best. I'm no fan of them but I think it'd be best for all if there was some closure to it all, Square-Enix could move on past the FF13 era, and they could focus on new projects and new numbers. As a brand, Fabula Nova Crystallis has arguably held the primary focus of the series for almost a fifth of the twenty-five years.

And Fabula Nova Crystallis as a whole seems to suffer from what Versus seemingly suffered. It never really seemed to have a coherent direction. And as a whole everything about it seems to have been protracted and taken longer than should have been necessary to bear any fruit.

The primary games are all that really emerged from it - IIRC Type-0 has got confirmation it'll come out to markets other than Japan, but not where or when. Type-0 even found itself renamed away from the FF13 numbering because it wound up so disconnected. I know that it shares terms and a mythology but the director himself stated it had very little to do with FF13.

Compared to Ivalice Alliance and Compliation of FF7, the subseries as a whole doesn't really work all that well. Which is odd, as the other two named sub-series both were more ad-hoc in nature, expanding on a proven success. Fabula Nova Crystallis was on paper a planned out attempt to build a subseries around a mythos, and was a gamble because it wasn't being launched on the back of an existing success. And maybe that's why it never found a direction in terms of the spinoffs and gaiden games.

If they're moving onto the future, I'd say acknowledging that Fabula Nova Crystallis is the past is a good start. Announce Versus to be dead and buried. Announce an FF13-3. And move on. Give the fractured fanbase something to look forward to as a whole and give newcomers something to draw them in. Try and recover from the damage Typhoon Fourteena caused. Do something to make all but the most dedicated of hardcore fans feel some excitement for the Final Fantasy name again.

This post has been edited by Del S on 20th July 2012 17:19

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As much as I enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII, and expect to enjoy -2, I think I agree with Del's overall notion. I think that the sooner they move away from the XIII universe, the more likely the company is to hit it big with a new Final Fantasy again.

Again, this isn't an indictment of the games at all. Del was never impressed, but I liked XIII very much. Liking it doesn't mean it might not be time to move on from that world, though, not in the least.

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Quote (Del S @ 20th July 2012 13:19)

It's for the best if it's true I think. Versus was rapidly becoming another Duke Nukem Forever, and for all that it was trying to be... it's still unclear exactly what that was, isn't it? All they had was a goal of being "different" from other FFs and some screenshots, and even after six years that's all they ever had.

At the very least, this is for the best. Letting the FF13 brand as a whole maybe die off and conclude with a possible FF13-3 is probably also for the best. I'm no fan of them but I think it'd be best for all if there was some closure to it all, Square-Enix could move on past the FF13 era, and they could focus on new projects and new numbers. As a brand, Fabula Nova Crystallis has arguably held the primary focus of the series for almost a fifth of the twenty-five years.

And Fabula Nova Crystallis as a whole seems to suffer from what Versus seemingly suffered. It never really seemed to have a coherent direction. And as a whole everything about it seems to have been protracted and taken longer than should have been necessary to bear any fruit.

The primary games are all that really emerged from it - IIRC Type-0 has got confirmation it'll come out to markets other than Japan, but not where or when. Type-0 even found itself renamed away from the FF13 numbering because it wound up so disconnected. I know that it shares terms and a mythology but the director himself stated it had very little to do with FF13.

Compared to Ivalice Alliance and Compliation of FF7, the subseries as a whole doesn't really work all that well. Which is odd, as the other two named sub-series both were more ad-hoc in nature, expanding on a proven success. Fabula Nova Crystallis was on paper a planned out attempt to build a subseries around a mythos, and was a gamble because it wasn't being launched on the back of an existing success. And maybe that's why it never found a direction in terms of the spinoffs and gaiden games.

If they're moving onto the future, I'd say acknowledging that Fabula Nova Crystallis is the past is a good start. Announce Versus to be dead and buried. Announce an FF13-3. And move on. Give the fractured fanbase something to look forward to as a whole and give newcomers something to draw them in. Try and recover from the damage Typhoon Fourteena caused. Do something to make all but the most dedicated of hardcore fans feel some excitement for the Final Fantasy name again.

As much as I hate to agree with Del - nah, just kidding.

In all seriousness, I agree with most of this. The Fabula Nova Crystalis in general felt entirely without direction. They seemed to have had some grand idea in mind, but one without a strong enough bond to make such a series expansion worthwhile.

Versus XIII seemed to have a lot of potential; there was undeniably a lot of really interesting ideas floating around. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these ideas resurface in later games; for the present, however, I think it is for the best for SE to cut their losses on Fabula Nova Crystalis and move forward. I enjoyed FFXIII quite a bit, and I would like to play FFXIII-2. I would certainly look into playing a FFXIII-3 at the least, without knowing anything about it. But I think it's clearly better for the image of the series as a whole to move beyond the number 13 and put a wholehearted effort - which it sounds like they are doing, based on these reports - into FFXV.

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

As it turns out, Kotaku was wrong about Versus being cancelled. I know, Kotaku being wrong about video games. What a shocker.

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