As Final Fantasy XV is still the biggest game in the Squenix stable, even as it nears a year from its release, there was plenty of XV news. First, of course, is the announcement of a Halloween release date for "Comrades," the multiplayer XV expansion set. Since I failed to mention it when it was first announced, Comrades will fill in some timeline that is not part of the main XV story by allowing players to play the role of a Kingsglaive soldier to undertake quests in the XV world; it's not yet clear as to whether the expansion will actually create any new canonical story elements, though there will also be some single-player content that might factor in. Nobuo Uematsu has even penned a new vocal theme for the expansion, his first work for the game. Note that reading more about this expansion is likely to spoil some XV for you if you've not finished it!
Still on the topic of XV, new for TGS was a new (and VERY spoilery!) trailer to announce the next phase of single-player XV universe content. Episode Ignis will be out in December, completing the DLC for the main party. A King's Knight mobile game, based on the game to which the guys often refer, is out now in Japan (which I personally hadn't heard about coming). A new update to allow more active hunts is coming very soon - and thank goodness for that - and a number of smash cuts advertising free updates to extend the story promise to fill in some more blanks as well. I've seen rumors that the first of this story expansion might center on Gentiana, but I can't seem to find confirmation of that at this very moment.
Tabata also mentioned just before TGS that while he was previously joking about bringing XV to Switch, he's not really joking any more. They have not figured out how to do it yet in a way that would please them, but they are in discussions about how to possibly make it happen. That could mean that only the Pocket Edition makes it, or they might figure out some magic way to get it to play on the somewhat-less-robust platform. Don't get your hopes up just yet.
Oh, yeah, and Noctis is coming to Dissidia NT. No big shock there, but at least we now have a character where the flying-dash move to get across the battle arena makes sense! If you played the beta of NT, by the way, you will probably be pleased to know that Squenix are revamping the UI before retail release. I personally thought the battle UI was awful in the beta; redoing it won't make it a game I particularly want to buy, but I do think it will improve it quite a bit. You can see the changes in the Noctis video linked above.
For those who have been tracking Lost Sphear, there's a demo out now in Japan for both PlayStation 4 and Switch. Siliconera has video of both so you can compare and contrast - you can even watch both at once at the link should you desire! It looks nice on both platforms, but that shouldn't be a shock because Tokyo RPG Factory games seem to be built not to max out systems' capabilities. The demo will contain a work-in-progress portion of the start of the game, and will allow players to continue with their progress once the full game is out. No information yet about the demo or full game outside of Japan.
The Secret of Mana remake has gone a bit quiet since its original reveal; while some people might be waiting and hoping for news that they might remaster it to be a bit higher-fidelity from the trailer that was announced before, but what you get for now is some new concept art and announcements of the Japanese voice cast.
In the mobile realm, the company debuted a four-versus-four arena battle game called Battle of Blades; the branding reminds me a little bit of a Bravely Default/Final Fantasy Tactics hybrid, but the art style in-game doesn't resemble either all that much. It's got a single player story mode, and also a multiplayer mode in which players can join eight-player matches and compete in the 4v4 battle mode to control various nodes on the arena map. It's due to come out in Japan for both iOS and Android before 2017 is out, but for some reason this one doesn't strike me as something that they're planning for worldwide release.
Outside of RPG-style games, the big reveal from TGS this year was a new IP called "Left Alive." This is a pretty interesting looking game from first blush; Gematsu reports that it will be a third-person shooter set in the world of Front Mission. It's not like this is new ground in gaming, but in this case the character design will be coming from the character designer of Metal Gear Solid, and the game's direction will come from a director of the Armored Core series. The trailer even starts with a look at a Christmas tree in an apartment building, which made me briefly and wistfully think of Parasite Eve. Left Alive has a 2018 release window for PS4 and PC right now, with no other information available.
Source: Siliconera, Gematsu
Posted in: Square-Enix News, News from Japan