Editorials

Final Fantasy XV: the next No Man’s Sky?

by Flintlock August 22, 2016 0 comments

Last week saw the release of the highly anticipated survival/exploration game, No Man’s Sky. If you’ve paid any attention at all to video game news since then, you may have noticed that the reaction has been – to put it mildly – mixed. In this editorial, Flintlock looks at whether Final Fantasy XV could suffer the same fate.

With No Man’s Sky, players seem to largely fall into one of three camps: those who are happy with the game, those who are disappointed with the game, and those who are angry about the game. What has pushed many people from the disappointed group into the angry group is that they expected more. They feel like they were misled, even lied to – and it’s hard to argue that they don’t have a point. For Hello Games, a company with just 15 employees, managing fans’ expectations proved beyond them. This was their make-or-break game, and it needed to be pretty spectacular to live up to the massive hype it had generated.

If that rings a bell with you as a Final Fantasy fan, it’s because the same things have been said about Final Fantasy XV. The following quotes are from Hajime Tabata, the game’s director:

“For Japan, I believe it is a ‘make or break’ for the franchise. If the Final Fantasy brand is on its demise in terms of its numbered, mainline series within Japan, then I feel like it would also follow suit globally. The Japanese console game market is definitely getting smaller and that directly connects to the fact that the demand for consoles and console games is declining. At the same time, that means a decline in the Final Fantasy IP [intellectual property].”

Source: Game Informer (video)

“If Final Fantasy XV doesn’t do well, perhaps there’s not much of a future for console games.”

Source: Kotaku

Tabata has also said that the Final Fantasy XV team have set themselves a target of 10 million sales for the game. Accurate video game sales figures can be hard to come by, but as far as we know, only one Final Fantasy title has ever broken the 10 million mark: Final Fantasy VII. Aiming to surpass VII – in more ways than one – is no bad thing, but I can’t help but feel that Square Enix have invited an enormous amount of pressure on themselves.

Will that prove to be a mistake, as it was for No Man’s Sky? Let’s take a closer look at some of the biggest reasons fans are angry about No Man’s Sky and discuss whether Final Fantasy XV is likely to face the same problems.

Missing features

Following Sony’s marketing push, No Man’s Sky director Sean Murray appeared in both niche and mainstream media outlets – even making an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – to explain the game in more detail. Murray appeared uncomfortable in many of the interviews he gave, and often seemed reluctant to answer direct questions about the game.

Some of that can possibly be attributed to the fact that the game was first shown to the world three years before its release, when much of it was presumably yet to be finalised, but that does not excuse him completely: first, he never corrected himself; and second, even claims he made as recently as two weeks ago turned out to be false or at least highly dubious. An enormous (and fully sourced) list of missing features surfaced on Reddit a few days ago and quickly went viral as players vented their frustration.

Square Enix have been much more careful in the way they’ve disseminated information about Final Fantasy XV. Yes, Tabata and some other members of the team give interviews and make statements which eventually have to be corrected or clarified, as was the case with the “10 million sales” claim I referenced above (it was originally thought that the game had to sell that many copies to break even, which isn’t the case) but for the most part, Square have taken a very in-house approach to their publicity for the game. Much of what we’ve learnt about it has come through so-called Active Time Reports.

One notable thing about these ATRs is that the person interviewing Tabata isn’t a journalist, but the game’s marketing manager, Akio Ofuji. Since both interviewer and interviewee are Square Enix employees, the company is able to control the questions as well as the answers. If Tabata decides he doesn’t want to talk about a particular aspect of the game, Ofuji just won’t ask about it. Even when Tabata has held Q & A sessions, the questions have been pre-selected from Twitter, not from the live audience. If Tabata were a politician, this would be a very shady practice, but as a game director working for a private company, he’s entitled to do it, even if it might occasionally frustrate fans. And as a result, we can be pretty sure that everything revealed in the ATRs will actually be in the game, though perhaps not in exactly the same format.

Underwhelming gameplay

Another major criticism of No Man’s Sky, and not just from people who went in with elevated expectations, is that the gameplay just isn’t fun. One review described a particular frustration with it:

“The problem, then, is that those [enjoyable] parts are so constantly interrupted or put on hold for the sake of a survival loop that just isn’t very fun. Shit, I’m almost out of carbon, which means I need to wander over to some local plant life and slowly cut it down with my mining tool. Damn, I’m ready to leave this planet but my thrusters are low on power; time to wander mindlessly until I happen across some plutonium.”

Source: Polygon

If the core gameplay mechanic isn’t fun, players are bound to be disappointed. Fun is a subjective experience, of course, and many others – including members of our own forum – like the gameplay in No Man’s Sky, but one expects Square Enix won’t be satisfied if only half of all Final Fantasy XV players enjoy it. If that happens, the game will attract a lot of negative publicity, reducing sales and bringing up the “future of the franchise” questions all over again.

Unlike No Man’s Sky, which was a new title, developed by a small team with presumably a small budget, Final Fantasy XV has been in development for between five and ten years (depending on whether you include work on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as the game was known before it became XV), and is likely to be the most expensive Final Fantasy game ever developed. In other words, Square Enix have a lot more to lose than Hello Games, who, despite the negativity towards their game, are still likely to make a significant profit.

It’s impossible to predict how fans will react to Final Fantasy XV until it’s released. We have had a couple of demos to play with, however, and it doesn’t take a lot of searching to find both positive and negative reactions to those. As the first open world game in the Final Fantasy series, XV could easily fall into the classic trap of being “wide but shallow”, offering players a large playable area but not much to do in it – exactly as No Man’s Sky does. We can only hope that refuelling the “Regalia” is an enjoyable, if not central, part of the experience.

Price and DLC availability

A common theme amongst critical user reviews of No Man’s Sky is the claim that the game isn’t worth $60 (or the regional equivalent). While the price of a game shouldn’t objectively have any bearing on whether that game is “good,” it’s understandable that gamers have come to accept a certain correlation between price and quality. Whether or not you ultimately enjoy it, you’d expect that your money would get you something that can be played without game-breaking glitches and performance issues (more on those in a moment) on day one, whereas you might think “this game has promise, I’ll wait for the patch” if it only cost $10.

Final Fantasy XV is also going to cost $60 at launch – or at least the most basic version of it will. There’s also a “deluxe” version available for $90, which adds a Blu-ray edition of the feature film, “Kingsglaive,” and some cosmetic options to the base game. The “Ultimate Collector’s Edition,” as it’s called, is limited to 40,000 copies (30,000 were initially announced and another 10,000 were added later) and contains the deluxe edition plus the following:

“…an additional exclusive two-disc steelbook containing the official Blu-ray Disc Music (featuring music from FINAL FANTASY XV, KINGSGLAIVE and BROTHERHOOD) and the BROTHERHOOD Blu-ray (containing an additional bonus scene). Also includes a PLAY ARTS -KAI- Noctis action figure with Ultimate Edition-exclusive weapon.”

Source: Square Enix Online Store

All of which can be yours for the paltry sum of $270.

$270 is more than a month’s wages in some countries. And yet, Final Fantasy fans with disposable incomes have been pre-ordering every copy they can get their hands on (and in some cases, promptly selling them on eBay at much higher prices). In fact, amongst people who collect things like “Play Arts Kai” figures, the package was generally thought to be fairly priced. At least, that was the case until Square Enix announced a DLC Season Pass which won’t be included in the “Ultimate” edition. The comments on both the announcement and subsequent reports have been, well, less than great. Here is a typical response:

“The Ultimate Collector’s Edition is already almost $300, shipping is NOT free and we don’t get on day one unless you pay for the most expensive shipping option. I preordered this with the impression that it was going to include everything. When the season pass was announced, I had a knot in my stomach wondering if it would be included. Why is this called the “Ultimate Edition” then? You already have a retailer exclusive game not included with it, and now you have a season pass with some pretty hefty content.”

Source: Sinchobe on the Square Enix Blog

It should be pointed out that in most cases the price of any pre-ordered edition of Final Fantasy XV won’t be charged to customers until the products are ready to be dispatched, so anyone who changes their mind can still cancel their order. It’s hard to imagine many people doing that, though. Anyone willing to pay $270 for a game is clearly a hardcore fan who would rather pay an extra $25-ish for a season pass through their teeth than miss out on any content.

So while Square Enix probably haven’t lost fans, they have definitely lost a bit of good will. If the game turns out to be a disappointment, expect that to come back to bite them in the same way the high price tag of No Man’s Sky has done. That’s the same No Man’s Sky that was supposed to have “no paid DLC”, but… yeah.

At least some fans are appreciating the irony in an “ultimate” edition that doesn’t actually include everything:

“Ultimate Collector’s Edition isn’t Ultimate, but hey, Final Fantasy isn’t Final”

Source: Adrian Duran on Siliconera

Performance issues and release date

The PC release of No Man’s Sky has been beset with problems since launch, far more than the simultaneously released PS4 version – perhaps due to Sony’s involvement. Performance issues, crashes and glitches have been all-too common experiences for PC players, as attested by the scathing reviews the game has been receiving on Steam. It should be noted that a patch was released on Friday, supposedly to address some of those issues.

Day one performance issues are never a good thing, but they tend to be received particularly badly when the game has already been delayed, as No Man’s Sky was by two months. Final Fantasy XV has just received a two-month delay of its own, as we reported last week. Tabata explained:

“This release date will allow 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.”

Source: Youtube

There’s that word again: “expectations.” Some fans have been debating whether Tabata is telling the truth about the reason for the delay, but considering all the evidence we’ve looked at so far in this article, there’s every chance he’s telling the truth. Again, he knows that the game simply can’t fail.

He went on to say that he wants all players, including those without fast internet connections, to have the best possible experience on the game’s (revised) release date without the need for a gigantic day one patch. The Platinum demo of the game suffered from significant performance issues of its own, including low frame rates, instability and poor dynamic resolutions – troubling for a game so close to release.

Recent videos and screenshots of the game – not just the demos – suggest that the graphics have received a substantial downgrade, presumably in order to address those issues. The game is scheduled for release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but rumours have already started swirling about future ports to the PS4.5 (or PS4 “Neo”; it has no official name yet), the Xbox Scorpio and even the Nintendo NX. It’s possible that one of those consoles will be required to get the game as the developers intended it, without performance caps. It’s important to remember that this is all purely speculation at this point, but a lot of fans are likely to be disappointed if the game they’ve paid between $60 and $270 for is superseded within a few months of release.

Speculation aside, however, the delay to Final Fantasy XV causes Square Enix another problem: the timing of their promotions is way off. “Kingsglaive” has already been showing in cinemas for the past month in Japan, and screenings in the United States begin today. The DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film were supposed to be released on October 4th – and that hasn’t changed, as far as we’re aware – five days after the game’s intended launch date.

Now, fans who ordered the deluxe or ultimate editions of the game will have to decide whether they can wait until they receive their bundled copies of the film on November 29th, or whether they can afford to buy an extra copy in October. Unless Square Enix offers an olive branch such as a free streaming code to everyone who has pre-ordered (which they could easily do at little cost), fans are, again, going to be disappointed. And that’s to say nothing of the people who have already booked time off work on the assumption that the game would be in their hands on September 30th.

Final thoughts

We’ve covered many ways in which No Man’s Sky and Final Fantasy XV face similar problems. Though perhaps “problems” is the wrong word – perhaps we should call them challenges which could develop into problems if not handled correctly. In some respects, such as information management, Square Enix are already well ahead of Hello Games, but in other areas, mistakes have already been made, like the decision not to bundle the DLC season pass with the Ultimate edition. Concerns remain about the performance of the game, but it’s not too late to take care of those.

All things considered, the delay to Final Fantasy XV’s release was probably for the best. Square Enix should take heed of the backlash to No Man’s Sky and use the additional time they’ve bought themselves to make sure their next flagship product – the culmination of a decade’s work – doesn’t suffer the same fate.