It's been almost ten years since a new numbered title was announced

[Tetsujin]

It just dawned on me. FFXV was of course announced as Versus XIII alongside FFXIII way back in 2006. After that, we had FFXIV announced at E3 2009.

We haven't seen a glimpse of a truly new numbered Final Fantasy game in the following ten years. Isn't that kinda crazy?
I feel like Versus XIII's long development hell and rebranding in a way robbed us of a true XV announcement.

Do you think we'll see a XVI announcement before VIIR is out? Could it even be at E3 this year? Or is it all in on VIIR (part 1 or whatever) before they even think of announcing a new one?

Also, why am I making a FF thread? This doesn't seem like me lately, yet here we are. Discuss.

For fun here's the XIV announcement with people in the audience going "wtf".

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I think SE has been in development hell for so long with so many Final Fantasy related titles that it would be interesting to see them announce a new one just to see how they handle the development of it. That said, FFVIIR is shaping up to be in development hell just as much as FFXV and KHIII were, so I can also see them not wanting to announce anything until people know that FFVIIR is going places.

That said, a lot depends on who the dev team working on it is. I'd almost be more interested in who would be working on the next Final Fantasy game then what the game itself is advertised as.

 

[Cthulhu]

And to imagine they churned out a numbered title once a year at some point, . The only guys still doing that are series like CoD, Battlefield, AssCreed, and sportsball games.

There I said it: EA is not all bad. Off course, those games are mostly evolutions from previous games, whereas FF games often do something new gameplay-wise and non-continuous plotwise. an shit.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Lol FF7 remake is gonna be the only big budget Final Fantasy in the next 5 years. That'd be my guess. Part 1 will come out this christmas.
Part 2 and Part 3 will come out with 2 year gaps between them. So that's about 5 years from now until it's all done.

I really don't see why people are expecting otherwise. FF7 remake is very likely gonna be their best selling game of all time. They're gonna want to give it center stage.

 

[ChipNoir]

I'm at a point where I'm no longer excited for Final Fantasy games just for the sake of having a new one. XV has killed any anticipation I have for the future of FF. Until I see fresh blood behind an FF, I'm kinda done with the mainline series unless they really wow me with whatever they have planned next.

 

[Ghost X]

FF has had its time

 

[Lulcielid]

But during that time frame SE released dozen of other FF games, tbh I never understood why fans put so much importance on a random roman number in the title of the game.

 

[ChipNoir]

But during that time frame SE released dozen of other FF games, tbh I never understood why fans put so much importance on a random roman number in the title of the game.

The main number title puts expectations on the product. Side games have different expectations.

A lot of the side games for example are mobile games, which have thinner plots, limited gameplay, and all the problematic monetized issues.
Others are "Handheld" styled games, which are also thinner in plot in order to make sure the player can squeeze in satisfactory runs in half hour bursts. You aren't meant to play games like World of FF, Crisis Core, Type-0 and others in long marathons. They're just too repetitive.

For better or worse, the mainline games are given the resources and quality to be considered fully fleshed out games without compromises compared to their spin off mobile/handheld counterparts.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Dude, World of FF was not just a handheld game with anything close to a thin plot. Not sure what you're talking about.

Same for Type-0. The only limitation regarding its platform was its reuse of assets, PSP level action oriented combat and limited animation for its models.

Any JRPG is going to have a manner of repetition because that's how the experience system operates. Battle upon battle to grind out levels and achievements. And in regards to Type-0, it is the easiest to get to Level 99 thanks to just putting the characters in private training and giving them time to just level up themselves. Either by just doing other stuff while not playing or literally fast forwarding time on the console.

A numbered title isn't always going to be indicative of content or quality. Like you said before, look at FFXV. In the end, it's just a brand. If the game is good, and well done, then it doesn't matter if it's a numbered title or not.

Kingdom Hearts 3 was the "official" third installment in the KH series that took 10 years and I can safely say I had way more fun and enjoyment with the previous "side" games that came previously. So yeah, a number is an arbitrary classification that can mean a fully fleshed out quality title and resources but that doesn't mean it will be. The past few games they've done that haven't been numbered have been just as enjoyable so yeah.

 

[ChipNoir]

World of FF's plot does not live up to my expectations from the VI to X. So we don't agree there Mako. Same for Type-0. They both feel extremely episodic rather than long commitments.

 

[Ite]

1992-2002: Final Fantasy IV-X released

It’s kind of insane how quickly technology developed in that 10 year frame, it makes those 10 years seem much longer.

 

[Castiel Strife]

I loved Final Fantasy XV, and honestly don’t get why it garnered so much hate. I’m sure it got some praise too. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did it was great. Was it the same quality of story-telling as earlier titles? Well, no, but Square’s earlier titles were some of the greatest games ever created.

As for a potential XVI, I think they’ll at least want to get the first “part” of the Final Fantasy VII Remake out first. KHIII is done, and I’d imagine they’ll be focusing almost all of their efforts on the remake right now. Even if they did dedicate or are dedicating a few resources to the next numbered title, I’d imagine almost all of their efforts would still be going to the remake.

 

[Makoeyes987]

Because FFXV came out more or less incomplete. It wasn't close to its full potential. I personally think it did turn out to be a wonderful game... If you waited the 8 to 10 months or however long it took for the Royal Edition to come out.

But a lot of people picked up FFXV on day one, saw the barren hellscape it was, made it to chapter 13, and just nope'd the fuck out. Never to return again. A lot of the perks and positives we take for granted in XV weren't around in the first release of the game.

So yeah, that's why it has a mixed rep. It reminds me of No Man's Sky. That game was shit when it first came out. Now? It's actually amazing and full of content and the fans who stuck around were rewarded.

 

[Lulcielid]

Did you compared XV with NMS? The former was nowhere near the shitshow of the later, one is recommended by a bit less than 1/3 of critics while the other is recommended by almost 3/4 of them (also XV is 3 points above NMS in the user reception on Metacritic)

 

[Makoeyes987]

I didn't mean a literal comparison...

I meant that both were games that had extremely rock beginnings that didn't love up to their hype but eventually grew and improved to the point they did and fans who stuck around were pleased. That's all.

 

[Castiel Strife]

I played and beat XV at launch and still loved it. I haven’t even played the royal edition. I liked No Man’s Sky at launch too, though. I was overhyped for that game but still enjoyed it.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

The one team I'd be interested to see develop a single player FF title is the current FFXIV team. It would be really interesting to see what they could come up with if they had complete creative freedom to do whatever they wanted to. Despite FFXIV being a theme park game of every reference in the FF series they can fit in, it still manages to have a fresh take on many of the things it is referencing. Of course, with how well FFXIV is doing, SE probably isn't going to want to mess with its dev team for a while.

As someone who only plays games on PC and doesn't believe in spoilers, I tend to base my decision on weather or not I want to experience the story a given FF game is telling as a game on how satisfying the storyline feels. And the most recent single player FF games don't have very satisfying stories that I want to invest my time in. Or at least, satisfying story conclusions (not counting sequals). I think the most recent single player FF game that I wanted to play because the story felt satisfying when I read its summary was FFXII. And that story was thought up by Matsuno who isn't a part of the normal FF dev team. FFX and FFXV have me looking at the end of FFXIII and asking myself if I want to play through yet two more stories that involves sacrificing a main character at the end of the story to finish it and deciding in the end that no, I really don't need to play two 60 hour+ games that have that kind of ending.

If there's one trope that worries me the most about the future of the Final Fantasy series, it's True Art is Angsty trope. It just feels like with the last few FF games that the story writers can't give people an ending that doesn't have a ton of angst thrown in it. Usually by the death of a character. Or for that matter, it feels like any mystical authority figure since FFX has always not had humanity's best interest in mind. It would be great if the next FF game managed to not have the feeling of "yep, the gods? totally trying to screw us over" and "yep, one of the main party members is going to have to die to save the world" right from the teaser trailer.

To be honest, that is one of the main reasons I like FFXIV so much. Its plot isn't predictable. Yes, there's angst, and characters do die. There's also a lot of "wins" that are played straight without any of the main characters dying. For the last two expansions, there have been relatively straight "wins" to the point that finding out the next expansion is going the angst route doesn't feel like "Oh great, here we go again. Who should we not be attached to this time because they are giving off death flags?".

I'd love to think that FF could do an upbeat FF game again, but... we'll see...

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

@Obsidian Fire
In fairness to FFX, those tropes were still fairly new at the time for the series. It was the first time a main character legitimately carried through on sacrificing themselves in the end, and it was the first mainline entry in the series to do the "God is the enemy" thing (only FFTactics had done it previously, and "Chrono Cross" if we're counting cousins to FF).

I can see the sentiment that "God is the enemy" has been played out, but I also think gamers/consumers of this kind of media are more discerning than ever about plot devices and such. Back in the day, it was subversive for an RPG to go that route because everything was once archetypes and we didn't really question "Why don't the gods just do it themselves?" We just accepted something like "Alright, got the mission from the gods, got the sword from the gods, let's go save the land from The Darkness" at face value.

If we're going to continue having that kind of presence in a story, we need convincing reasons for divine tasks to fall to mortal representatives -- and so it usually ends up being that there's A Dark Secret about them.

The Dissidia games, of course, played the concept completely straight with Cosmos, which I'm sure is a big part of the reason why its story is considered largely forgettable by many. To its credit, though, it did provide a legitimate enough explanation for Cosmos's impotence.

I won't disagree, though, that the series could do with a little more creativity at this point since they have now tread this road so much (fully embraced in Tactics, X, XII, XIII and its sequels, Type-0, and XV; and to a lesser extent by XIV). Perhaps they just need to leave such figures out for a game or two if they can't do anything else with them.

 

[Tetsujin]

But during that time frame SE released dozen of other FF games, tbh I never understood why fans put so much importance on a random roman number in the title of the game.

Basically what Chip said. There's different expectations, a main series game has a certain scope and there's an excitement to an announcement of such a game that other games generally can't match (unless you're a certain elusive remake).
Also it'd be nice to be able to look forward to a new console game that doesn't feature Lightning or Noctis in some fashion for once

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Eeh... FFXIV plays with the "God is the enemy" trope probably more then any title in the series does. There's the two main gods (Hydaelyn and Zodiark) and a bunch of lesser ones (if you think they exist in the first place). Out of the main gods, Zodiark has been the enemy since the game launched and everything points to him (or his agents at least) as wanting to destroy Hydaelyn and the rest of the world. And his agents spend most of their time manipulating people to further that desire. Hydaelyn herself has saved us (and a bunch of other people) from death at least twice and the first time she did that, she was weakened severely. She's made it pretty clear that she only calls people to help her out when Zodiark's agents are on the verge of winning and so far she's lost every time that happens. And event with all that, the best evidence that Hydaelyn could lying about what is going on is that the gods in other Final Fantay games never explain what is actually going on. In over five years of story, there's yet to be any in-game evidence that the situation is not what she says it is.

The lesser gods have never really been shown to exist in and of themselves. The only time they appear is when they are summoned by their followers, and FFXIV goes out of it's way to confirm that the thing that is summoned isn't the god itself, but a bunch of energy in the form of what the followers idea of the god is. This gets really crazy when we start seeing people's perceptions of historical figures being summoned in the same way. The "lesser god" summoned is just like a mako reactor in that it sucks up energy from the real goddess, Hydaelyn, and makes her weaker over time. Let's just say the followers of Zodiark have confirmed that they are the ones who teach different groups of people how to do this on purpose so that Hydaelyn will be weakened even faster...

The closest example I can think of FFXIV playing "A Martyr for the God" straight would be with Minfilia. Only... she's not actually really dead and she even tells us the last time we see her that she is coming back...

 

[Cthulhu]

Come to think of, both XIV and XV were... kinda meh at first, and had to be patched up to be effective. I didn't like XV (I got it from the start - does the DLC / etc change the base game in any significant way?), I never got to XIV 1.0. If we compare those two, then does that mean FFXIII (2009) was the last "complete" FF game that didn't need any patches or DLC or remakes to work?

 

[Makoeyes987]

FFXV's Royal Edition changed the base game, significantly.

Chapter 13 is no longer a horrifying slog since you can skip the worst of it by playing as Gladiolus and Ignis, you're able to revisit the main continent past chapter 12, Insomnia has been made more explorable with quests to complete, optional bosses are added, a further additional power up was added for Noctis upon acquiring all 13 Noble Arms, you can sail the Royal Boat freely, all DLC are included, the multiplayer Comrades game is added, you can play as Ignis, Prompto or Gladiolus and various other quality of life tweaks are added.

So yeah, it's... definitely different. For the better

Now if they only added Diamond Weapon as an optional boss to fight then it'd be perfect. Oh well...

 

[Gary Caelum]

Yeah XV at launch was pretty disappointing. By the time Ep Ardyn is out though, the game will pretty much be twice as long as the launch game. It's a completely different thing at this point.

I think their reason for pushing it out in such a bad state is just because it had been so long since a critically and commercially successful game in the series, so they just weren't sure how much it could sell. They were probably thinking somewhere between 3 million and 8 million. If it was 3 million, they were gonna have to worry about making almost no profit on this 10 year project. Luckily it was 8 million so they're probably quite pleased with it.

 

[Lulcielid]

Mako you're overselling the changes from vanilla to RE, tha game base loop and structure are mostly untouched, the only outlier in that equation are the optional path in ch13 and updated final dungeon in ch14 (so only 2 out of 14 chapters are were significantly retouched).

Yeah XV at launch was pretty disappointing. By the time Ep Ardyn is out though, the game will pretty much be twice as long as the launch game. It's a completely different thing at this point.

False, the DLCs aditions only make XV at most 24hs of more content (with half of that being made up of multiplayer grind) vs 92hs of conteny from the vanilla game.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I'm.. not overselling anything. That's all included and done in the game. Not sure how I'm "overselling" by factually stating what was added. Those changes exist. Being able to revisit and do the sidequests and stuff you left behind before chapter 12 is a pretty big difference than before. Being able to replay the past chapters of the game and do a new game plus with each chapter is a pretty big difference. Not sure what you're trying to imply. They changed the base game a lot between now and the initial release.

And outlining how long it takes to just do a once over through the DLC is not the same as delving into and doing all the side quest stuff that exists in it. Each episode also has its own additional challenge/superboss to beat so that also is added content to chew on too. If you just sail through it straight through yeah it's pretty quick but it's meant to give more gameplay as well as storyline content.