Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Final Fantasy XV at Gamescom

Some Final Fantasy fans were excited for Final Fantasy XV’s showing at Gamescom, and you couldn’t blame them. We’ve received a nearly steady stream of information since its re-unveil as FFXV at E3 2013, to the point that a demo was included with first-print copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. Since it’s reboot from the development hell-laden Final Fantasy Versus XIII, current director Hajime Tabata is ostensibly doing a good job steering the team in the right direction. With this came renewed hope that we’ll actually be able to play this game one day.

A shame that all crashed down with a deafening thud once their Gamescom showing actually began.

It started with the new “Dawn” trailer, which displayed the stunning tech Square Enix has put into this project, and another example of its potentially excellent soundtrack from composer Yoko Shimomura. But those only take you so far when you forget to implement key elements into a trailer, like anything not-boring. One part of the trailer featured young and a frightened Lunafreya (who’s not the same character as the discarded Stella), but more than half of it was focused on King Regis holding his son, protagonist Noctis in his younger days. In other words, it was far from worth the 24 hours of hype Square Enix gave it. Heck, I’m sure people would have preferred it if the trailer focused on the dog.

That Regis himself received a significant redesign didn’t help matters, after people adjusted to his not-Alan Rickman version. This new iteration resembles a more generic fantasy king, making the change peculiar to say the least.

The trailer was a bust, but it was possible Tabata was saving the meat for the livestreamed “Active Time Report” segment. But as if following a pattern, hopes slowly came to a halt when watchers realized it would be a prolonged session of talking heads, which involved describing (and not showing) the changes they’ve made — including the aforementioned Regis one. Heck, one section was even devoted to reading the story synopsis off the official website, bafflingly enough. Another was devoted to showing the aforementioned trailer again, though anyone looking forward to this game had undoubtedly seen it. Basically, God help you if you watched this live, or you’d be convinced this game wasn’t even in active development.

Despite the ATR running for just over one hour, the total amount of gameplay shown came to around…one minute and 40 seconds. It involved Noctis roaming through a number of environments, both old and new, and culminated with the team fighting and losing a battle against a Marlboro due to its Bad Breath attack. You could almost hear the concurrent cries of “That’s it!?” in the air if you listened closely. Following this, Tabata and his crew treated themselves to some beer, a hilarious moment for anyone not too emotionally invested in this.

Though the gameplay shown was rough performance-wise, enough to make Scalebound’s look good in its current state, that was due to a streaming issue. Square Enix damage controlled this by uploading the gameplay video to their Youtube channel, which maintained a nigh-constant 30fps.

Funnily enough, Tabata was a little taken aback upon discovering that people weren’t impressed with their showing, and understandably so. With this game languishing in development for so long (over nine years!), the fanbase wants more significant information with every showing, especially when the game skips conventions like E3 2015. They’d like to play this in the near future, but this showing gave the impression that it still isn’t close to release.

This makes it difficult to take Tabata’s promise that it’s releasing by the end of 2016 at face value. Despite FFXV apparently being late in development, they’re also at a point where they’re still considering implementing new concepts, unsure of whether their engine (Luminous Engine) can utilize them. This currently goes for airships, which Tabata isn’t sure the game will have. The team is only in the earliest stages of consulting Avalanche Studios’ Just Cause 3 team, to see if the tech used in that also-upcoming title is possible on Luminous Engine. That they’re engaging in experimentation like this currently should leave anyone in doubt about their supposed deadline.

If Tabata and the team aren’t fans of the reaction, they have no one to blame but themselves. If you promise something, you have to deliver on that. And though some FF fans are admittedly over-the-top and appear borderline unhinged in providing their viewpoints, there’s another larger group expressing disappointment in a considerably quieter manner. Though you shouldn’t expect much from their potential appearance at the Penny Arcade Expo later this month, they should make sure to bring something substantial to Tokyo Game Show in September.