When Final Fantasy XV touches down on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later this year, Square’s long-awaited JRPG will incorporate “both open-world and linear” segments.
Word comes by way of Famitsu (via Siliconera), where Hajime Tabata outlined the general setup of FFXV, which will seemingly become a more linear affair midway through the main story.
“The entire game structure for Final Fantasy 15 consists of both open-world and linear parts. The first half keeps going as an open-world, but the story in the second half is led by a linear path. That way, you won’t get bored of an open-world as the rest of the game tightens, so we made it in a way that you’ll also get to advance through it as you have in conventional Final Fantasy games.”
Famitsu’s report goes on to reveal that, after dabbling with a hands-on session of Final Fantasy XV and reaching chapter three, Square’s upcoming title will feature 15 chapters in total. It was here, while experimenting with the earlier portions of the story, that the Japanese magazine encountered those open world segments, before Tabata confirmed that, as FFXV nears its climax, fans can expect a more linear experience.
How that change of pace will impact the story – if at all – remains to be seen, but it’s intriguing that Square is stretching Final Fantasy XV in both directions so to speak. Final Fantasy XIII, for instance, was criticized purely because the gameplay structure funnelled players down once lavish corridor after another, only to expand its scope dramatically 40-something hours in. Can FFXV strike a balance between the two?
Emerging from a ten-year production cycle, Final Fantasy XV is slated to land on November 29 for PS4 and Xbox One.
