When Square Enix delayed Final Fantasy XV to November 29 earlier this week, they said the extra time would give “the development teams time to further polish and conduct quality testing so that the reality of the game can match the expectations of both the fans and the creative teams.”
In a video message about the delay, Game Director Hajime Tabata added that the team was working on a day one patch for FFXV to further improve the final version of the game and add substantial content, but since every player won’t connect to the internet and update their copy, they wanted to take the extra time to put the update on-disc. So, when FFXV launches on November 29, it will “contain everything that was scheduled to be on the day one patch, as well as some extra things on top of that.” Tabata says this means that all players will be getting the “ultimate quality version,” but there are still plans for future updates.
Speaking with IGN at gamescom this week, Tabata explained why they settled on needing two extra months:
It would take about one month exactly to fit everything we wanted in the day one patch into the disc version. And with that, pretty much all of the technical issues would be sorted out. And then we thought that after we got that technical base down and there were no problems there, it’s one more month to polish everything up and get it really great. And that’s why it was two months.
What they’re mainly working on in those two months is “fixing the bugs which affect the visuals of the game, polishing that up and doing the final optimization push,” and they’re also doing some final balancing. You can get a pretty clear idea of what the final version of Final Fantasy XV will look like in the recent 50-minute gameplay video (above).
As for the post-launch DLC, which won’t enter development until Final Fantasy XV is out, Tabata says each episode will include gameplay tailored to their strengths and weaknesses of each party member. “For example, with Gladio, we really want to push the action element and have a much higher level of action gameplay for his episode,” he said.
Prompto’s episode, meanwhile, will “focus on how he uses his gun and that kind of element of the gameplay, and have the systems slightly customized to work with that.” For Ignis, his episode will “focus on his tactical abilities and focus on a more tactical kind of gameplay.”
