Final Fantasy XV has been delayed

On August 14th a collective groan was heard throughout the Final Fantasy fandom. Final Fantasy XV would not be released on September 30th but on November 29th. Developer Square Enix announced on that the global released would be delayed; they gave this message on August 25th as to why it was delayed. “From the moment we joined this project, our vision was to create a level of freedom and realism previously unseen in the series. Regrettably, we need a little bit more time to deliver on this vision and are confident that this new release date will help us achieve this,” said director Hajime Tabata in a press release. “As the director and lead of this project, I wish to personally apologize for the additional wait. As a team, we want Final Fantasy XV to achieve a level of perfection that our fans deserve. We kindly ask for your understanding.”

Watch the full developer interview in the video below:

It’s been ten years: what’s two more months? It’s two more months that I have to wait to finally play this damn game! Many of the entries in fabled Final Fantasy series have kept fans anxiously awaiting their release, but none have pushed their release back quite as far as Final Fantasy XV. The game was originally announced in 2006. It was set to be a spin-off to Final Fantasy XIII which received lukewarm reviews upon it’s release, but it quickly snowballed into it’s own game. Ten years went by and the game sat in development limbo until a ray of light finally shown on the Final Fantasy fandom.

In 2015 they released Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae demo, this came with Final Fnatasy Type-0 HD. The premise of the demo is that the party must make enough money to pay for their car to be fixed. It was created around a sequence in the full game where the party loses its car, but the main story is masked within the demo. Then the company went silent, no info at E3 2015 or PAX Prime 2015, save one minor announcement from director Hajime Tabata. Tabata publicly stated that in March of 2016 that Square Enix will be making the announcement at their own special event during March. This is when the release date for Final Fantasy XV would be made. Finally the wait would be close to being over…or so we thought.

Initially thought to be released holiday season 2016, it was announced for September 30th release until that it is, when they confirmed the delay and the new November 29th release date.

Before you get angry and start burning your cactaur dolls, know this: D=delays are almost universally a good thing for everyone (except maybe the shareholders). Rumors had been floating around for a while now that Final Fantasy XV was in rough shape from a technical perspective (the demo was ok but not great), and two months is a huge amount of time for optimization and polish. If true, this delay will likely lead to a better game. I for one am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope this delay is a good thing. As in all things though, only time will tell. I will be back with a review of the game once it’s released.