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Final Fantasy XV Season 2, Spin-off Comrades Game Coming In The Next 2 Years

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

Fans of 2016’s Final Fantasy XV got confirmation at the Penny Arcade Expo that a season 2 of downloadable content is upcoming alongside the unexpected news that the multiplayer focused expansion, titled Comrades, will be receiving a major update this summer and a stand-alone release.

We’ve known for a while now – since the release and confirmation of March’s FFXV: Royal Edition  – that brand new episodic DLC episodes could be a possibility.

Thanks to ResetERA User Reyes, who provided high quality copies of slides presented during the Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future panel that the next season of FFXV DLC will include:

  • Episode Ardyn: “The Conflict of the Sages”
  • Episode Aranea: “The Beginning of the End”
  • Episode Lunafreya: “The Choice of Freedom”
  • Episode Noctis: “The Final Strike”

All four of Season 2’s episodes will be directed by the same director as Season 1’s Episode: Ignis. An alternate ending to the game will be presented in Episode III: Notics – “The Final Strike”, Season 2 of DLC is set to begin at the end of this year and continue into the summer of 2019.

Comrades, an add-on expansion from Season 1 which allows players to create their custom avatar and take them during Chapter 13 of the story will receive multiple updates as well as a standalone version that can be played without the base game.

Here’s the full DLC schedule as presented at the panel:

I’m glad the rumoured (and honestly absurd) Final Fantasy XV: Versus episode ended up being nothing more than fan speculation. With almost two years of post-release content, now multiple Season Passes and a collection of free updates, FFXV has improved markedly from the initial release. I know fans wanted the development team to embrace Nomura’s original script and ideas – but I think expanding the characters and world of XV is a much better choice.

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Check Out Noctis In 10 Minutes of Tekken 7 Gameplay

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix never seems to shy away from cross over promotions – although, most of them involve another creator’s work appearing in games like Final Fantasy Brave Exvius or their MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. This is however not the case with Final Fantasy XV protagonist Nocts Lucis Caelum’s appearance in Namco Bandai’s Tekken 7.  

Over GDC week Noctis was released as part of a $20CDN add-on pack for all versions of Tekken 7. With the majority of GDC related work I finally got the chance to check him out. For this brief 10 minute gameplay video I did a single run of arcade mode with Noctis completely blind. So, yes, this means for the most part I’m button mashing until I got the hang of some of his moves – like the signature Warp Strike. Namco did a commendable job adapting Noctis’ flowing combat style to the world of Tekken without completely breaking the combo-heavy grounded combat despite the fact they’ve introduced an RPG protagonist known for his love of heights. 

Also included in the Noctis DLC pack was a stage based upon Hammerhead Junction from Final Fantasy XV but it’s not included in the embedded video.  

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Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition Demo Coming Ahead of March 6th Launch

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

Final Fantasy XV will be coming to Windows 10 in a little over a week and Square Enix has announced that a free demo version of the game will be made available a few days before launch. The demo will give players a taste of the real-time combat, NVIDIA Game Works enhancements and characters that FFXV has to offer. You’ll be able to play the entirety of Chapter 1: Departure in the demo version, which should last about an hour or so.

Square also outlined a series of pre-order bonuses that will be available until May 1st. There is a different set of bonuses based upon your digital distribution service of choice:

Steam – Access to the Half-Life pack which decks out Noctis in the HEV suit and glasses of Gordon Freeman. This pack also adds the iconic crowbar as a usable weapon in game. I guess Valve hasn’t entirely forgotten about the Half-Life series, they’ll still dust it off for a cross promotion.

Steam purchases also includes access to the “FFXV Fashion Collection” which is comprised of various stat boosting tees for Noctis.

Origin – Access to the “FFXV Decal Selection” which comes with a selection of alternate skins for the crew’s car.

Windows Store – Probably the most interesting of all three services. The Xbox One version of FFXV is cross compatible with the Windows Store version, meaning that you can play the multiplayer Comrades expansion with friends who own the game on that platform. Save data can be imported from the Xbox One version of XV to the Windows Store version as well.

Previously Square Enix also released the Final Fantasy XV Official Benchmark a couple weeks ago. That tool was supposed to give players a sense of how the game would run on their computers but as it turns out – some features like NVIDIA Hair Works couldn’t be disabled entirely and the Official Benchmark lacked all of the tweakable options that will come with the final release.

Here’s hoping the upcoming official demo fares a bit better. Below are the previously released minimum specs and a run through of the official benchmark.

Recommended Specs for 1080p
• AMD 8350 or Intel i7 3770
• 16GB
• At least 100GB free
• GeForce 1060 6GB variant or Radeon 480 8GB variant

Recommended Specs for 4K
• Windows 10
• Intel 7700k or AMD Ryzen 1600x
• 16GB
• At least 150GB free
• GeForce 1080TI

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Square Enix launches FFXV Pocket Edition

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Jason Nason

Square Enix has a history of taking Final Fantasy to new places and today they announced they are taking FFXV to mobile devices. And it’s free to start.

Fans and newcomers can now experience Final Fantasy XV anywhere and anytime with Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition, available now on the App Store, Google Play Store, and Amazon App Store. With an adorable art style and casual touch controls optimized for mobile devices, the title is now easier than ever to pick up and play.

Purpose-built for mobile devices, this new title retells the beloved story of crown prince Noctis and his brothers-in-arms, Prompto, Ignis and Gladiolus, across ten thrilling episodes.

All ten episodes are available now, with the first episode at no charge. Episodes 2-3 are available for $0.99 USD while episodes 3-10 are available for purchase for $3.99 USD individually. They can also br purchased as a bundle for $19.99 USD.

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Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition Benchmark Released

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix has released an official benchmark for the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition which will be released on March 6th. The 4GB benchmark is not a playable section of the game but rather a series of pre-configured demo scenes that take about six minutes to run. FFXV: Windows Edition’s benchmark allows users to try out three different quality settings – Lite, Medium and High and three resolutions – 720p, 1080p and 4k. Users of the benchmark have pointed out that it does not offer 1440p resolution support, a common resolution between 1080p and true 4k.

Don’t have access to a gaming PC and want to know how it looks? I recorded the demo on my Dell Inspiron 7000 Gaming Laptop with a Geforce 1050. On this modest medium range gaming setup I got a solid 30 FPS with very few dips (only noticeable during loading screens) on medium settings at 1080p. My gaming laptop ended up with a score of 3000 on the benchmark – which means that it is right around the recommended specs for the medium quality pre-set.

 

We previously reported on the minimum specs for each supported resolution. Here they are:

Recommended Specs for 1080p
• AMD 8350 or Intel i7 3770
• 16GB
• At least 100GB free
• GeForce 1060 6GB variant or Radeon 480 8GB variant

Recommended Specs for 4K
• Windows 10
• Intel 7700k or AMD Ryzen 1600x
• 16GB
• At least 150GB free
• GeForce 1080TI

Square Enix also released a neat little chart that outlines what certain scores mean for the final version of FFXV: Windows Version. It should be pointed out that this chart outs quality pre-sets that go well beyond the released benchmark. The pre-sets expected to be in the final version are: Extremely High, Very High, High, Fairly High, Standard, Slightly Low, Low and Insufficient (does not run the game).

Square also published a reference list about how a whole pile of GPUS should perform in the Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition benchmark under optimal circumstances. Here is a cross section of some of the most popular GPUs and how they should score on the Lite setting:

Geforce 10 Series:

  • Geforce 1080: 1437
  • Geforce 1070: 12797
  • Geforce 1060: 9708

AMD RX 5XX / 4XZX Series:

  • RX Vega: 13263
  • RX 570: 10270
  • RX 470: 9720

Geforce 9 Series:

  • Geforce 980: 11205
  • Geforce 970: 10195
  • Geforce 970m: 7545
  • Geforce 950: 6375

[Source]

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Report: Square Enix Recoups Final Fantasy XV Development Costs

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Seems that Noctis, Gladio, Prompto and Ignis succeeded in one particular mission the first day that Final Fantasy XV was available to the public – breaking even on its development costs. The game’s director Hajime Tabata stated to DualShockers during a recent visit to the company’s Japanese offices for their Business Development Division that the game was profitable right from the start.

Final Fantasy XV was a monumental success in the West with Square announcing that sales of the game had exceeded 5 million units on launch day so it is no surprise that Tabata & Co broke even right out of the gate. FFXV was the first entry in the franchise to have a simultaneous worldwide release, typically prior to this latest title FF games would come out in Japan first followed by localized releases as the translation was completed.

Additional content will be coming to Final Fantasy XV including single player episodes based around Gladio and Prompto as well as a PlayStation VR experience based around FFXV’s world.

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The Wait For The Final Fantasy 7 Remake Just Got Longer

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Final Fantasy VII remake

Fans who had expected to play the Final Fantasy VII remake this year for the game’s 20th anniversary might be a little disappointed with the news that the game has yet to enter full production at Square Enix.

Speaking with Japanese gaming publication Famitsu director and long time Final Fantasy character director Tetsuya Nomura stated that while progress is being made on the title (and Kingdom Hearts III) the development of the FF7 remake is different from other titles the company has worked on in the past.

Square Enix has never directly provided a release date for the Final Fantasy VII remake which will be released episodically. Many fans simply assumed that when the game was announced back at E3 2015 that we would see at least episode one by the games 20th anniversary. The most recent Final Fantasy title, Final Fantasy XV began life as a pet project of Nomura’s Final Fantasy Versus XIII where it languished in development for over a decade before finally seeing release under the direction of Hajime Tabata from September 2014 forward.

Here is a translated quote from the recent interview:

“We’re making steady progress on its production. While we are indeed working on it, I think we’ll have you guys wait a little longer for both Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake.”

[Source]

 

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Holiday Themed Final Fantasy XV DLC On The Way

Posted on December 17, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Fans of Square Enix’s decade in the making Final Fantasy XV get to enjoy a holiday treat with a pair of DLC add-ons the company announced. A free Holiday Pack will be available for everyone and includes a special Warrior’s Fanfare, a band which stops the party from earning experience, admission to a special holiday carnival and a special Chocobo themed t-shirt. Owners of the Final Fantasy XV Season Pass are able to snag their own unique fanfare, an item which grants Noctis unlimited sprint, another accessory which increased the rate of loot dropped by enemies among other goodies.

Here is how Square described each item in the free Holiday Pack:

Warrior’s Fanfare – A scroll of sheet music containing a song of jubilation that provides additional AP for earning an A+ in Offense outside of training.
Nixperience Band – A device that stops experience points from being tallied, preventing the party from leveling up for an added challenge.
Carnival Passport – Adorably adorned ticket that whisks the bearer away to a fun-filled carnival for a limited time.
Choco-Mog Tee (available late January) – An exclusive T-shirt featuring everyone’s favorite fluffy and feathery friends. Colorful, comfy and appropriate for any carnival-goer.

moogle_chocobo_carnival_concept_art

Those with the season’s pass will be receiving all of this:

Ring of Resistance – A protective piece of jewelry that renders the entire party to be resistant to magical friendly fire.
Tech Turbocharger – A device for Noctis that accelerates the tech bar replenishment rate, but freezes the Armiger bar.
Armiger Accelerator – A device for Noctis that accelerates the Armiger bar replenishment rate, but freezes the tech bar.
Blitzer’s Fanfare  – A  scroll of sheet music containing a song of jubilation that provides additional AP for earning an A+ in Time outside of training.
Tactician’s Fanfare – A scroll of sheet music containing a song of jubilation that provides additional AP for earning an A+ in Finesse outside of training.
Key of Prosperity – A lucky charm that increases the rate at which fallen foes leave behind items of value.
Stamina Badge – A device that enables Noctis to sprint and hang without expending stamina.
Carnival Passport – An adorably adorned ticket that whisks the bearer away to a fun-filled carnival for a limited time.
Festive Ensemble (available late January) –  A fancy and fun outfit perfectly suited for enjoying the festivities. The darling design puts all who see it in high spirits.
Holiday Pack + Exclusive Photo Frames (available late January) –  Additional themes the player can add to Prompto’s photos when sharing over social media.

This latest update to Final Fantasy XV also adds the addition of New Game Plus which allows players to restart their journey over but with all of their other gameplay data intact!

photo_frame_2

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FFXV’s “Ready To Play” Partial Install Shows Flaws In Sony’s System

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix’s decade-in-development RPG Final Fantasy XV is now playable for those who have pre-loaded the titled on PlayStation 4 through the PlayStation Store. Like many other Final Fantasy fans I decided to go all digital with this latest title due to the fact that it would unlock at 10 PM EST and allow me to play several hours ahead of the release locally – plus I wouldn’t have to leave the house, which is a huge plus.

During the download of FFXV the PlayStation download manager will tell users that approximately 8GB of the game are required before the game is “ready to start”. I naively assumed that this “ready to start” download would allow me to play at least the first chapter of the game but just like last year’s Star Wars: Battlefront FFXV’s partial download is nothing more than an endless gauntlet against waves of enemies. If you have slower internet like I do you could be facing the prospect of fighting an endless horde of goblins for hours with little variation in content to keep you entertained.

So what’s the big issue? Well, when Sony announced the PlayStation 4 they positioned the “Ready To Start” as enabling the player to begin their gaming experience while waiting for the complete game to finish installing. Unfortunately in practise in many cases this mean’s the players either face endless hordes of enemies or other smaller slices of game-play that do not add to the overall experience with the completed game. Earlier in the system’s life-span launch games like Need For Speed: Rivals allowed players to start the campaign, as did Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. It is inexcusable that FFXV’s mandatory partial download does not contain any substantial content. If Sony is going to mandate that developers put in small slices of playable content while downloads finish they should take steps to ensure that they are entertaining.

I think Jim Sterling did a lot better in his lengthy video on the particular issues with the “Ready To Start” feature than I can in one news article:


Final Fantasy XV is now available for digital pre-load on PlayStation 4 and will be available at retail locations tomorrow for both PS4 and Xbox One.

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Jaw Dropping Cosplay From PAX West 2016

Posted on September 10, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Did you have a fake pass? The Daleks will exterminate.. exterminate!

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Remember that episode of Futurama where Bender was a pro wrestler? This cosplayer does!

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Big Boss and an LT are ready to infiltrate PAX West 2016.

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Nurse Joy was on hand to cure all that ails the huge pool of Pokemon Go players.

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Absolutely fantastic Tracer & D.VA cosplayers… with Dad76.

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An Umbrella corp generic soldier with an Umbrella Corp… umbrella… Wut

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“‘Til Valhalla!”

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Mario approves of PAX West!

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Captain America at the end of day three of the con.

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Square Enix was on hand with professional Cindy cosplauyers and an Uber branded truck.10

Link riding a unicycle with bagpipes? … is that Lens-flair or Navi?

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Ratchet is ready to patch up any small holes in the convention schedule.

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Final Fantasy XV’s Mobile Game ‘Justive Monsters Five’ Now Available

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Jason Nason

It’s always cool when an in-game minigame makes the leap to full fledged game, and the pinball game within Final Fantasy XV has now debuted for mobile devices.

Justice Monsters Five, the pinball minigame in Final Fantasy XV, is now a full-fledged mobile app. This brand-new style of pinball game combines role-playing elements with some of the franchise’s most iconic monsters.

Players join the Justice Monsters – Bomb Bro, Casanova Coeurl, Fab Flan and Lamiana – in the struggle to save the Nova Galaxy from the diabolical Lord Vexxos. Using simple touch and flick controls, engage in exhilarating battles, unleash special attacks, and recruit and train new monsters to fight for justice and defeat the forces of evil.

Read More

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30 Minutes of New Final Fantasy XV Footage Highlight PS4 / Xbox Differences

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix posted thirty minutes of new direct-feed footage from the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XV to YouTube. To say that this footage is “new” might be a little subjective given that a large sections of this gameplay video were covered in Square’s 60 minute gamescom presentation a few weeks back.

So what makes this footage interesting to analyze? The GamesCom footage was taken from the English dub and this new footage comes from the Japanese version, allowing fans to analyze script differences. Portions of both demonstration videos were taken from a mixture of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One builds.

What differences have fans pointed out between the two? Here is a partial list of some of the main criticisms that some observers have pointed out:

  • Different dialogue and motion capture for some characters.
  • A dialogue wheel appears in the Japanese footage but does not appear in the English GamesCom build. (has this feature been cut?)
  • The Xbox One build runs at 752p in some of this footage.
  • Foliage does not appear to be completely implemented in some of the footage.
  • Object draw distance appears to be slightly less in the Xbox One build.
  • Number of objects on the Xbox One title screen is considerably less when compared to the PS4 version.
  • (Old footage vs new footage) – Chocobo area appears to be brighter and contain more foliage.

Want to see some of the differences in action? Here are some pictures comparing the various pieces of footage we’ve got from Square Enix between GamesCom and now. Keep in mind that these pieces of gameplay might be taken from a variety of different builds & platforms (PS4/Xbox One). 

Pushing Car Gameplay

FF_Car

Status Screen Comparison

FF_Status1

FF_Status2

Title Screen Comparison

FF_Title_Screen

Chocobo Area

Choco2

Choco1

What do you think of the differences between these two gameplay videos? Did anything strike you as particularly noticeable? Let us know in the comments section. You can watch the original videos in the embedded players below.

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Square Enix Makes Final Fantasy XV Delay Official

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix announced during GamesCOM today that the rumored Final Fantasy XV delay is indeed official. The long awaited game will now make its debut on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One worldwide on November 29th, 2016. The publisher also announced that the delay of the game will not affect the digital release fo the tie-in film, KingsGlaive: Final Fantasy XV, which is set to debut at the end of the month.

What’s the reason for the delay? Well there was actually very little PR / Corporate speak in Square’s news release – they’ve admitted that the game needs more polish and QA testing before it is ready for prime time.

Final Fantasy XV

FFXV’s director Hajime Tabata is quoted regarding the two month release as saying:

“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.”

Square’s admission that the game needs a bit more polish falls in line with a rumor that sprang up on 4-chan (unsourced of course (**ALSO POTENTIAL UNCONFIRMED SPOILER WARNINGS AT THAT LINK**) that claimed FFXV was only partially playable on production PlayStation 4 units. According to the leaker only about 2 hours was playable on PS4 and the Xbox One version faired even worse.

As soon as we know more about the delay of Final Fantasy XV we will let you know. I got the chance to play the Titan Demo at E3 and was generally impressed with what I played.

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New Evidence Suggests That Final Fantasy XV Has Indeed Been Delayed

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Rumblings have been happening on places like the official Final Fantasy XV Reddit, NeoGAF and other gaming discussion communities that the upcoming Final Fantasy XV has been delayed by 60 days. Originally posted by outlet Gamnesia – instructions were reportedly sent out to GameStop locations in the United States to update their cardboard standees with a new date: November 29th 2016.

Kotaku reporter Jason Schrier took to Twitter to confirm that he has confirmed the delay with non-retail sources. Here’s the original tweet:

Images also surfaced on NeoGAF from the GameStop mail-out explaining the process of updating Final Fantasy XV’s in-store marketing materials.

final_fantasy_xv_launches_nov_29__large

Final Fantasy XV re-emerged from years of silence during E3 2013 and has had two playable demos released to the public over the past 18 months – Episode Duscae was released as a pack in with  Final Fantasy Type-0 HD in March 2014 and Final Fantasy XV: The Platinum Demo was released just before E3 2016. Final Fantasy XV began development as Final Fantasy Versus XIII and was announced more than 10 years ago at E3 2006!

 

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Final Fantasy XV Gets A Pair of Demos @ E3

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Square Enix brought not one but two demos for the upcoming Final Fantasy XV. Microsoft and Sony both secured exclusive demos for Squeenix’s next huge game but in different way – MS’ demo video showcased the world smashing battle with the soon-to-be summon Titan. Noctus can be seen warping, slashing and dodging his way past titan’s ginormous ground based attacks. Sony’s demo took things in a lighter direction with the series’ memorable chocobo music opens their demo with the later half consisting of the reveal of PlayStation VR support for the game.

Final Fantasy XV will be out in North America on September 30th 2015. A PC port is “possible” but not confirmed at this time.

Check out the trailers in the embedded players below.

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