Final Fantasy 15: Nomura explains switch from Versus 13, talks next-gen leap

Final Fantasy 15 was revealed as the new name for Final Fantasy 13 Versus at E3 last week, and director Tetsuya Nomura has revealed to Famitsu exactly what prompted the change.

Speaking with the magazine, Nomura explained, "Around one or two years after we announced FF Versus 13, it was suggested to us to shift to FF15 as part of the company's direction. By that time, a fair amount of time had already passed since the announcement and Versus was a well-known title, so it wasn't a given that this would be 15; it could have still been Versus.

"Personally, I came to accept the idea once FF Agito 13's name was changed to Final Fantasy Type-0. As for the timing of the announcement, given that we were changing platforms as well, [the timing] wasn't something we could decide on our own discretion. We worked together with assorted other divisions to get it announced at this E3."

The game was revealed during Sony's pre-E3 conference last week for PS4 and subsequently Xbox One, along with confirmation that it will spawn multiple sequels. Nomura shed light on why the game moved to next-gen formats, "We had originally thought about making this announcement last year, but due to assorted reasons that got delayed. This meant that the lifespan of the current generation of consoles was starting to pose a problem to us.

"If we were a year later, other companies will have more time to research the next generation, and releasing the game against their products on the older generation could have caused us to look inferior when people inevitably compared us."

He added that current-gen tech simply wasn't viable for the game's ambition, "With current-gen systems, we couldn't fully express what we wanted to do in this project. There were more and more things that we would've had to change the form of. However, the assumption was that we'd go ahead with a current-gen release, so went through a trial-and-error process to do as much as we could.

"So we built an alpha version about a year ago, and the company response was 'If you remained bound to the current generation, will it will be the product you envisioned?' They suggested shifting fully to next-gen, and that was the spark that led to the move."

The generational shift has helped Nomura's team realise what he has called a dynamic and seamless, with combat that - while real-time - does have many RPG stats running under the hood to dictate several aspects of battles. Adding in new lighting, visual and audio tech, it's not hard to see why the game moved to next generation consoles.

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Thanks Polygon.