It’s no secret that the development ofFinal Fantasy 15went through a long and tumultuous development cycle before finally releasing in November 2016. The fifteenth entry in the series originally started out as another project titledFinal Fantasy Versus 13before being rebooted as a main title in the series in 2013. For a brief period before this however, Square Enix considered giving the next mainline entry to a western studio, namely Eidos Montreal, and a recent interview with a concept artist from the studio that at one point the team was posed to developFinal Fantasy 15.
Final Fantasy Versus 13was first announced at E3 2006 as an entry in theFabula Nova Crytallisseries,a collection of games loosely connected which also includedFinal Fantasy 13andFinal Fantasy Type-0. Briefly following the release ofFinal Fantasy 13in 2009 and the original version ofFinal Fantasy 14in 2010, public opinion began to change surrounding theFinal Fantasyseries, with both games receiving mixed to negative responses from fans and critics.
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During this period,one of Square Enix’s most successful games wasDeus Ex: Human Revolution, a soft reboot of the beloved immersive sim title developed by Eidos Montreal, a studio Square Enix had acquired alongsideHitmandeveloper IO Interactive andTomb Raiderdeveloper Crystal Dynamics. Square Enix’s vice president Yoichi Wada suggested that the studio brand its next game, planned to be a space opera RPG, as the next mainline entry in theFinal Fantasyseries following the string of perceived failures from Square Enix’s Japanese branch.
The story ofProject W, the original pitch for Eidos Montreal’sFinal Fantasy 15, was first reported in 2018 by YouTuber Super Bunnyhop who claims to have spoken to many staff members who worked on the project. In a recent interview conducted with True Achievements, ex-Deus Exart director Jonathan Jaques-Belletêteconfirmed the existence ofProject Wand claimed that after the publisher rejected the pitch"they decided to bring it back to Japan, which I think was a big mistake. But it’s still the truth. Ours was really, really cool."
It’s believed that the reason Square Enix brought the project back to Japan and eventually rebrandedFinal Fantasy Versus 13toFinal Fantasy 15was due to Yoichi Wada’s departure from the company and his replacement Yosuke Matsuda’s mission statement to return the Japanese side of the company to its former glory. It can be argued that this came at the expense of Square Enix’s western side however, especially with the recent announcement that it isselling many of its western studios and IP to Embracer Groupfor a surprisingly low figure of €300 million.
Final Fantasy 15is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
