Square wants to release an FF title annually (1-2 yrs)

[SuperSabin]

The Escapist : News : Square Enix Wants a New Final Fantasy Every Year

This sort of news is a bit old (published around November of last year), But according to Kitase, they want to, "Release the Final Fantasy games like the Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, and Battlefield games" and he states this "they seem to work with a lot shorter turnaround - they make a game within 1-2 years. That is something we need to follow up, because that seems to be the best way to keep our fans interested and attracted to the franchise."

From what I understand, Square is taking an interest in shortening the development time in each final fantasy game and releasing them to the public. Sure it may be convenient to release to the public, but at the same time, this may ruin the quality of the product. Final Fantasy XIII-2 was developed within 18 months which we have yet to see how well that works out when the game is released (which may be already released by now).

You know what I think? I think Square is going to have a angry mob knocking at their door and a lot of unhappy posts on this topic.

[smurphy]

Personally, when it comes to most games, but especially the FFs, I much prefer quality over quantity. Even it that means waiting 4 years for an excellent FF, then having 4 mediocre FFs, then I am prepared to wait. Especially if that means we get a game that has not been rushed, as is likely to happen with yearly updates.

My biggest concern is that with games that have yearly updates, there is hardly any change in gameplay and very little incentive for innovation, due to the consumer showing that by buying yearly updates they are content with this. Even when changes are planned, one year is not long enough to fully realise and implement them thoroughly. So the FF series could turn into a series where the games are solid but hardly differentiate from previoes installments or are trying to innovate and be different but feel completely broken.

God, I hate that they are jumping on the yearly update bandwagon.

[loaf]

So by releasing one every year, they plan on making games that will be even worse? The only way I can see them pulling that off is if they actually have teams developing the games way way way way ahead of schedule and only announce it within that year.

Look at FFXIV....

[Zargabaath]

I understood where Kitase is coming from when he made those comments. The past 2 FFs (XII & XIII) took their sweet time in coming out. Five years from X to XII & a little over three years from XII to XIII. Versus XIII was revealed during E3 2006 along with Type-0 (Agito at the time). Type-0 was just recently released late last year & Versus is still not out.

Compared to the earlier years of the series when games were pumped out almost every year. The biggest gap in the series was from VI to VII. Granted the development time was a lot shorter and easier compared with today's hardware. Square has plenty of people who could make a FF, besides Nomura and Toriyama like Itou. Perhaps Kitase can direct again. SE should start finding new talent to introduce to the series instead of leaning on a couple of guys.

From a business perspective, and I don't want to make it seem like they should be grubby bastards, their release span has been horrible with some of their big franchises. Recently Nomura talked about Versus and KHIII. How, after finishing Versus, taking a break they'll start KHIII. To which the reporter quips so KHIII in 6 years right? Nomura jokingly says yeah but there probably is truth with what he said. It has been 6 years since since KHII another 6 and KHIII? Really? Too Human level now? Ridiculous and unacceptable.

I think this may get SE back on track. More focused compared to being in development hell or close enough to feel the flames.

[Trodorne]

I understood where Kitase is coming from when he made those comments. The past 2 FFs (XII & XIII) took their sweet time in coming out. Five years from X to XII & a little over three years from XII to XIII. Versus XIII was revealed during E3 2006 along with Type-0 (Agito at the time). Type-0 was just recently released late last year & Versus is still not out.

Compared to the earlier years of the series when games were pumped out almost every year. The biggest gap in the series was from VI to VII. Granted the development time was a lot shorter and easier compared with today's hardware. Square has plenty of people who could make a FF, besides Nomura and Toriyama like Itou. Perhaps Kitase can direct again. SE should start finding new talent to introduce to the series instead of leaning on a couple of guys.

From a business perspective, and I don't want to make it seem like they should be grubby bastards, their release span has been horrible with some of their big franchises. Recently Nomura talked about Versus and KHIII. How, after finishing Versus, taking a break they'll start KHIII. To which the reporter quips so KHIII in 6 years right? Nomura jokingly says yeah but there probably is truth with what he said. It has been 6 years since since KHII another 6 and KHIII? Really? Too Human level now? Ridiculous and unacceptable.

I think this may get SE back on track. More focused compared to being in development hell or close enough to feel the flames.

lets look at it like this what is the gap between VII, VIII, IX, and X? only a few short years and look at the die hard fan base who to this day say those were the best games of all times. so time frame has nothing to do with its making but the people who make it. And I agree new talent is needed to make a new final fantasy game. so why not look over seas to talent in North America or does it strictly have to be Japanese who have to make this game? sometimes its the wild cards that can give the biggest pay off.

But back to FF XIV, where i remember people saying that yeah it was going to be a great game. when i could see it was just a copy and paste of XI in HD.

[loaf]

But back to FF XIV, where i remember people saying that yeah it was going to be a great game. when i could see it was just a copy and paste of XI in HD.

If XIV turned into just another XI, then XIV would not be a Free to Play game. If XIV was the new XI, then I must have missed the train.

[Zargabaath]

lets look at it like this what is the gap between VII, VIII, IX, and X? only a few short years and look at the die hard fan base who to this day say those were the best games of all times. so time frame has nothing to do with its making but the people who make it.

What? VII to VIII was 2 years. Them from then on till X it was a year. So what are you getting at? Yeah, they can make great games in such as short time span but XII and XIII were quite different with their developmental journey.

[Trodorne]

What? VII to VIII was 2 years. Them from then on till X it was a year. So what are you getting at? Yeah, they can make great games in such as short time span but XII and XIII were quite different with their developmental journey.

Okay, ill explain. They can still make great games in a 1-2 year span.

[Zargabaath]

Which is what I said in my original post. Well that they should focus during development stage as to quicken the process. Don't know where you got confused.

[Rowan]

I dont care as long as the game is good. It can take as little as 5 minutes to come up with a good concept for a game, its the implementation/development that takes years. With as complex a console as a ps3, I can understand why its taking much longer than it did with previous titles.

[otomo]

I doubt Square can release games in a timely enough manner to release them yearly. Unless they've found a new way to program for the PS3 real quick, wasn't that blamed for a long wait for XIII?

[SuperSabin]

Now that I think about it, FF titles back in the day only took 1-2 years back in the Famicom and Super Famicom (NES and SNES) era and look how successful those were, the largest gap would have to be the release time between FFXII and FFXIII. They were 4 years apart from each other, XIV (relaunch) could very well be 3-4 years apart if square keep this going.

It does make sense to lower the development time if the length of release time is why the series is starting to suffer more than it should.

[Zargabaath]

Now that I think about it, FF titles back in the day only took 1-2 years back in the Famicom and Super Famicom (NES and SNES) era and look how successful those were, the largest gap would have to be the release time between FFXII and FFXIII. They were 4 years apart from each other, XIV (relaunch) could very well be 3-4 years apart if square keep this going.

It does make sense to lower the development time if the length of release time is why the series is starting to suffer more than it should.

Not that simple. Back in the day the dev teams were a lot smaller and games required a lot less work. Now because of how advanced things are, like games using real physics, they take longer craft. The first FF had like 8 people. Now it is close to or over 100.

While I too would like them to come out more quickly, shortening the time won't make them instantly better (to whom it applies). FFXII and FFXIII went through development hell which is a big reason why they took so long. Matsuno kept pushing things back with XII until he finally left and SE was busy making the Crystal Tools Engine for XIII which halted game production. And on a technicality X to XII was 5 years.

[SuperSabin]

Not that simple. Back in the day the dev teams were a lot smaller and games required a lot less work. Now because of how advanced things are, like games using real physics, they take longer craft. The first FF had like 8 people. Now it is close to or over 100.

While I too would like them to come out more quickly, shortening the time won't make them instantly better (to whom it applies). FFXII and FFXIII went through development hell which is a big reason why they took so long. Matsuno kept pushing things back with XII until he finally left and SE was busy making the Crystal Tools Engine for XIII which halted game production. And on a technicality X to XII was 5 years.

Well yeah, that makes sense, I forgot the fact about the size of game development engines people use these days. The problem I see with the more recent FFs (don't know if this is true with XIII-2), but the developers seemed to have forced action sequences in their game. In XIII, all the cutscenes and battles seemed like they were forced into the game to give its appeal and gave less attention to character development, exploration, and storyline.

I feel that the future FF titles could turn out better if development style had more of a balance. Engaging and involved storyline, some decent action sequences, an understandable user-friendly battle system, and a good amount of exploration thats enough to give the players the feel of freedom.

[Zargabaath]

In XIII, all the cutscenes and battles seemed like they were forced into the game to give its appeal and gave less attention to character development, exploration, and storyline.

By "character development" do you mean through stats and gaining "levels" or their personal growth as a character? If the latter that whole game focuses on the characters leaving the plot skeletal. Whether that development is good or not is another matter.

[Unknown Entity]

Honestly, I'm happy waiting for the next Final Fantasy games. I get excited for them after the announcement, but I'd rather they took their time a created something worth the wait. As much as I enjoyed FFXIII, it certainly lacked the qualities other Final Fantasy games hold.

I wouldn't want to see a new Final Fantasy game every year. It'd ruin how special a Final Fantasy game is compared to trash like Call of Duty. I don't think a year is enough time for a game on that magnitude.

[Andres]

All i could think of for the next game is FF13-3 or Final Fantasy versus 13

[Mystyrion]

I'm okay with them releasing a final fantasy every 2 years. With two separate teams, so that way each team has 4 years to work on a project.

[Crescent]

Dont tell us. Just DO it. But quality over quantity should ALWAYS take first priority.

[NeoAquarius12]

If they try this, they're going to make deadlines that are impossible to keep, and we're going to have to wait only with further anticipation. What they should do is start the development of their next project even earlier. They should be starting FFXV right now so we see it in 3 years and we're like WOW that was quick!

[Pete]

This is a horrible idea. Sure, they CAN do it, but at the same time, they can also just use the same exact engines and not develop anything new or unique. It'd be kind of like Assassins Creed. Sure the games are solid, but after ACII, they were all very similar and really didn't do anything too revolutionary.

A better example of how it can go poorly is Dragon Age 2. Bioware knows how to make RPGs. Look at Mass Effect 1 and 2. Dragon Age Origins was a phenomenal game. Dragon Age 2, was good, but nowhere on the same level. I'm convinced that much of the problem was that they didn't realize how good it was going to be, and how much of a demand there would be for a second. That being said, they panicked and put the game together as quickly as they could, cutting out much of the depth that the first had.

Long story short, if you think the games suck now, just wait to see how the quality drops and remains stagnant throughout each new installment. I understand Squeenix wants to compete with the current industry giants, but they just can't as of now. What they really need to do is get new writers, and character designers and go back to their roots. The older games, and even IX, were very good at telling both a serious story, but weaving it in with many lighthearted aspects. Everything they make now is all super serious and meh.