Story Behind ‘Final Fantasy XV’s Bearded Noctis At Pax 2016
Square Enix came out with new Final Fantasy XV game footage at the Pax West 2016, and a bearded Noctis was a rather surprising sight–but this is all with meaning and story.
Thanks to the recently concluded panel of Square Enix at the Pax West 2016, we finally gained access to new and exciting footage of Final Fantasy XV.Final Fantasy XV Director Hajime Tabata reveals more information about the upcoming update to the much-loved franchise, and as he shares more about the game, we are only left hungrier and more excited.
Attend the panel or tune-in to the #ffxv @Twitch stream, Sat 9/3 at 2:30 PDT! #PAXWest2016 https://t.co/RGHeD0iuIx pic.twitter.com/Bp169XyozL
— Final Fantasy XV (@FFXVEN) September 3, 2016
Talking to IGN, Tabata explains that the whole length of Final Fantasy XV is on a 10-year timeline. The Final Fantasy XV director then continues to elaborate on the reason for the long timeline, a tactic which many stories use but fail to give justice to.
“In the opening sequence, you see Regis and Noctis talking to one another and Regis tells him to stand tall. His appearance later on in the game communicates that he has [taken] that to heart and lived with those final words. The whole change in Noctis’ appearance from when the game starts compared to when years have passed [is so] that people would feel the passing of time, and that they were actual living, breathing characters rather than just symbolic characters.”
Including a bearded Noctis in the game was also crucial for Tabata, he reveals. It took a lot of courage for the Final Fantasy XV developers to come to terms with aging the primary character, and they hope the effort could be communicated successfully to the people who will be playing the game.
“It’s not typical to see a lot of Japanese RPGs with a mid-aged man as the main character. A lot of people who like Japanese RPGs would be surprised by the fact that they’ll see this character age in the way that he does, so it took a lot of courage for us as developers to do that. But we felt that it was important in communicating [the party’s] development and wanting to express it in a way that we only can with the current generation of consoles.
“There’s not a deep reason as to why we made it ten years. It’s just that we needed a significant amount of time to have passed within the game for certain reasons.”
Final Fantasy XV has been long overdue, but fans are still at the edge of their seats, waiting for the next new footage. iDigital Times notes that the Final Fantasy XV creators felt the need to push the release date even further to November so as to avoid players having to download a huge patch that would disrupt gameplay. Tabata explains.
“Our objective with Final Fantasy XV was to deliver a Final Fantasy of the highest possible quality to every single person who buys the game. We have completed the master version but when it comes to that highest possible quality, we felt that we had not quite reached that version yet. In order to make this master version an even better product, we have been creating a downloadable add-on known as a day-one patch.”
Final Fantasy XV will launch worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 29. Meanwhile, if you’re too excited to wait for the game, watch the new Final Fantasy XV footage from PAX West 2016 below.
[Image via Square Enix]
