[Morue]

Nothing to add...

[Jinfash]

Well looks like this image might need a fix!

[Aeana]

Doesn't this place Kagari in Hope's shoes? She might not appreciate that.

[LuuKyK]

:lol

Poor Kagari.

[Jinfash]

Doesn't this place Kagari in Hope's shoes? She might not appreciate that.

Just pretend that it's Noctis.

(Since they all look the same )

[Father_Brain]

Kingdom Hearts III was always supposed to be released after Versus XIII because Nomura felt that they needed to have a really good grasp of how to develop "next-gen" games because of the ideas he already had for Kingdom Hearts III would need all of their expertise on the platform(s) they would be developing Kingdom Hearts III for. And even if there never was any Versus XIII, he felt some KH stories still needed to be told before KHIII could even happen, so it's not just Versus that has been halting III's development. Also, the people from the KH Team have helped around with a lot of projects around Square Enix after the announcement of Versus XIII but prior to them starting work on Versus and even after they moved a small group to work on it (games they've more or less participated in include: Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts ReCoded, The World Ends With You, Final Fantasy XIII and possibly more).

You seriously believe it was Nomura's plan as of 2005 to go at least a full nine years between mainline KH entries (late 2014 being the earliest I can envision KHIII shipping)? I don't think even he's that crazy.

[CorrisD]

Wouldn't be surprised, this is SE, they give us FF13 which generally was received like marmite, and when fans continue to hope for the game they actually want in vs13 they give us FF13-2 and seemingly FF13-3 in the future.

[Kagari]

If it were false, I'd have expected an official statement denying it by now. It's been nearly thirteen hours since the rumor broke. But it'd be foolish to read too much into that.

Eh... I don't expect them to be quick.

[Kasumi1970]

In Kagari I Trust.

Why are people puting fath in Kagari? does she work for sony or SE?

[Aeana]

Why are people puting fath in Kagari? does she work for sony or SE?

She works for a fansite.

There's no reason to put any faith in anybody but your own brain, though. If they canceled Versus, they wouldn't be able to do so quietly because they'd have to break it to the shareholders somehow. This rumor sounds like a distortion of something else that's been rumbling for a while now, anyway. Just wait and see what happens.

[Jinfash]

This rumor sounds like a distortion of something else that's been rumbling for a while now, anyway. Just wait and see what happens.

Oh, now this sounds interesting. Do tell please.

[AgentChris]

Wait wut... oh it's Kotaku.

[BlueTsunami]

[StuBurns]

I doubt they'll issue a statement. "We do not comment on rumours and speculation" is all you ever get. XIII-3 staff will be interviewed in a magazine soon no doubt, I'm sure we'll get a "things are moving along, we'll have more to show soon, please look forward to it", something along those lines.

[Father_Brain]

Oh, now this sounds interesting. Do tell please.

My guess would be the rumor (or is it only speculation?) that Versus has become FFXV.

[Aeana]

Oh, now this sounds interesting. Do tell please.

It's nothing that interesting. I didn't mean to make it sound like it was.

[Seven Force]

Well, this was an interesting thread to read.

With that said, I'd imagine Versus is/was the last time they sink so many resources into a single title for so long.

[laika09]

My guess would be the rumor (or is it only speculation?) that Versus has become FFXV.

Ashcraft even slipped this into the article (and pretended it's not contradictory to his "source") to cover his ass if/when it turns out to be bunk.

[.la1n]

[StuBurns]

Well, this was an interesting thread to read. With that said, I'd imagine Versus is/was the last time they sink so many resources into a single title for so long.

They said they're going to move away from internal development, so yeah, very likely this is the last one. Even more reason to finish it.

[BlueTsunami]

Still believe calling Versus XIII FFXV is the emptiest of empty gestures. You'd think they'd use the next full entry as a clean slate but I fully expect SE to devalue the brand even further.

[Seraphinianus]

how could i be disappointed by something i know nothing about other than its title and a few screens of dudes with snarls on their faces and $3000 haircuts

[Midou]

Better that than leaving it in limbo I would say. For a long time I feel I've been jerked around.

[StuBurns]

how could i be disappointed by something i know nothing about other than its title and a few screens of dudes with snarls on their faces and $3000 haircuts

Well here you go, now you can know a lot more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIx9VJWSl8

[Respawn]

Legendary vaporware, if true.

legendary indeed.

[Fancy Corndog]

how could i be disappointed by something i know nothing about other than its title and a few screens of dudes with snarls on their faces and $3000 haircuts

There's gameplay video that makes it look like it could be a 'real' Final Fantasy game.

[Midou]

Still believe calling Versus XIII FFXV is the emptiest of empty gestures. You'd think they'd use the next full entry as a clean slate but I fully expect SE to devalue the brand even further.

If they put serious effort into making it a title people would really want to associate Final Fantasy with, and while the FFXIII franchise did sell well, it has negative connotations to a lot of people. A Final Fantasy which contains everything that has been lacking in FFXIII would be a perfect one to rename to FFXV, that way they could put more resources into it to and advertise it easier.

[Persona86]

how could i be disappointed by something i know nothing about other than its title and a few screens of dudes with snarls on their faces and $3000 haircuts

There's is info out there that many of us have read. I can't help it if your ignorant to that. ;)

[Aeana]

There's gameplay video that makes it look like it could be a 'real' Final Fantasy game.

The only gameplay video they've released publicly to my knowledge is the one where the combat looks like KH1.

[ryan13ts]

I'm shocked that anyone would be honestly surprised that this thing would be cancelled. The game was announced like what, 6 years ago? The flagship title of the original trilogy (FFXIII) has already been released AND had a sequel to boot within the time period this game has been in development. Any game that goes though that long of a development period is having some SERIOUS problems and has to be on the boarder of being canceled pretty much constantly.

Regardless of that, I really hope it isn't canceled. It looks like a game with great potential and I'd really feel bad for all the staff that put so much of their life into the seeing the game completed. However, I'm not going to be shocked at all if it turns out to be true.

[Fancy Corndog]

The only gameplay video they've released publicly to my knowledge is the one where the combat looks like KH1.

Well I mean there's action selecting and open areas. Maybe it's more KH1 than FF, but that's still more like the traditional FF than crap like XIII.

[Boney]

if by cancelled they mean a name change sure

[QisTopTier]

The only gameplay video they've released publicly to my knowledge is the one where the combat looks like KH1.

Yeah I dont see how that's a "real" Final Fantasy, 13 would be closer in the regards of gameplay

Well I mean there's action selecting and open areas. Maybe it's more KH1 than FF, but that's still more like the traditional FF than crap like XIII.

What... did you play 13/13-2 at all? o.O

[Fancy Corndog]

Yeah I dont see how that's a "real" Final Fantasy, 13 would be closer in the regards of gameplay

Selecting your actions in a more traditional way and open areas. Don't give me that crap about the 1% of FF13 that had an open field either.

I didn't play 13-2. It looked like 13 with more turns and NPC's from what I could tell.

[slaughterking]

Eh... I don't expect them to be quick.

That's the one thing Versus taught us.

[QisTopTier]

Selecting your actions (not queuing) and open areas. Don't give me that crap about the 1% of FF13 that had an open field either.

You gonna say how FFX isn't a final Fantasy game now? :P and that open field was where most of the game ended up being played. Versus looks nothing like a traditional final fantasy game I'm sorry. It's grown up Kingdom Hearts and from the old demo/videos a pretty big down grade from kingdom hearts gameplay

[Famassu]

It's ridiculous not to consider those things aspects of the development. The story was being worked on, character designs, cutscene animation and direction. The first trailer shows an in-engine cutscene from Chapter 12, exactly how it was in the final game.

That was simply a target render, you do remember that NO OTHER in-game scenes were shown of the game until 2008? If they had more in-game stuff to show, I'm sure they would've shown those instead of showing pre-rendered only trailers for a couple of years. That might've just been a case "why not use something that's already done" in the final game? Kind of like how Naugthy Dog simply had these scenarios for Uncharted 3, which they only later tied somehow to the story. They had stuff that was relatively finished, so why not just make it run on the actual game engine and tie it to the events of the game?

Maybe the moment to moment game hadn't been built, but lots of aspects of the game were built a lot more than a year before they shipped the game.

I'm pretty sure some of the post-mortem interviews have even stated otherwise. They couldn't have done much on the game when the tools weren't ready and because they were in a disarray in regards to where to take the game.

Also, like I corrected earlier, sure, the script & stuff like that were done much earlier, but the majority of the content almost 100% surely wasn't. That's why none of it was shown until, like, mid-2009, outside the demo-scenes.

I mean, do you not remember those development completion-percentages that Square Enix gave for their games in 2006-2008? Versus stayed at, like, 1,5% for 2 years and XIII wasn't much better and stayed somewhere around 7-10% for the same time. It wasn't until 2008 when they started to make some progression in the game's development.

I could believe they had a lot of loose sections of geometry, and the story/CG in place, then ran out of time so just had to randomly glue it all together, but without question that game was in active development for years.

If they had done so much of the game, I don't think they would've needed the help of Nomura's team for an entire year. No, very little of the game had been finished at that point.

And Versus might end up being almost the same situation. They have the engine, combat and story in place, maybe they don't have any of the meat designed, and they'll just have to stick random bits and pieces together to get it out the door, if so, that'll be a shame. I hope if that is the case, there won't be people on GAF saying it's because they only had a year to do it all.

Versus ISN'T in the same situation. How hard is that to understand? Simply the fact that it wasn't rushed out a year after XIII for a release in late 2010 means that they are in a completely different position. Really, as much as some people like to think it, there's a reason why HD towns were "impossible" for FFXIII, and that's not because the teams at Square Enix are so incompetent that they simply don't know how to do towns in HD (I mean, come on, they made cities like FFXII's, with shittons of detail). They didn't have the luxury to make towns since they had so little time to develop the game. The same doesn't apply to Versus, which has been carefully planned (to be a PS3 game from the start, btw, and not a "hey, let's move this game we're somewhat far into developing on PS2 to PS3 and start from zero") and not been rushed at any point. The whole way how the two games' development has progressed has been different from the start. XIII was the game they needed to get out ASAP since the screw ups and Versus was the one that would get enough time for Nomura to realize his plans for the game. Kitase & Co didn't "do it ALL" in one year, but they did develop the content in not much more than 12 months (maybe 14-15).

You seriously believe it was Nomura's plan as of 2005 to go at least a full nine years between mainline KH entries (late 2014 being the earliest I can envision KHIII shipping)? I don't think even he's that crazy.

Nomura considered Birth By Sleep so important that he thought it could become a kind of new Kingdom Hearts series of its own, so clearly he didn't think that we'd be without a major KH even if III wouldn't be out until after Versus XIII. Of course he probably didn't think it'd take this long. Still, prior to Final Fantasy Versus XIII's announcement, he did say those things about Kingdom Hearts III (that he had ideas which needed full understanding of a next-gen platform and that there were certain things he needed to handle in other KH games before III would make sense, story-wise) and he also said that his "next project" (which turned out to be Versus) would be a big one and the wait for it would be long since he didn't even have it fully thought out, let alone that development would've started. Versus was always going to be a massive project, it's just a massive project that got delayed for at least 2-3 years due to engine problems and having to help with XIII's development.

[Femmeworth]

It can't be true, it just can't be.

[Fancy Corndog]

You gonna say how FFX isn't a final Fantasy game now? :P

Of course it's a Final Fantasy game, so was FFXIII. It's just that everything beyond IX was unable to render an open world and therefore lacked most of what makes the series special for a lot of people.

edit: No, Versus doesn't look like a traditional FF game either. I guess I should have specified that it just looks like it may be less of a hallway with j-pop music playing in the background than the rest of 13.

[Shikoro]

Holy... wow. :D

Oh, and Versus is coming, people. I hope that some of you are joking with that crying stuff and all. :P Believing Kotaku, lol

[Seraphinianus]

Well here you go, now you can know a lot more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIx9VJWSl8

I forget what the situation was like around the time this vid came out, but I remember thinking "alright, that's a great start, can't wait to see more" and then nothing happened.

and nothing happened for a long time before that vid either....I mean, with XIII, the company pretty much already told me it's totally pointless to pay attention to their PR cycles. Secret theaters, tight wraps on everything, and then the game ends up being complete shit. So, things like saying there will be a world map in Versus and any details about that game just kind of bounced off of me.

[Famassu]

Of course it's a Final Fantasy game, so was FFXIII. It's just that everything beyond IX was unable to render an open world and therefore lacked most of what makes the series special for a lot of people.

Except XII has the best overworld any FF has ever had (and Versus is copying its style a lot)

edit: No, Versus doesn't look like a traditional FF game either. I guess I should have specified that it just looks like it may be less of a hallway with j-pop music playing in the background.

So one Jpop-ish song in FFXIII makes it a game that is filled with nothing but Jpop? Please, Hamauzu's best work in XIII is so superior to anything Uematsu has ever done that it ain't even funny.

[Seraphinianus]

There's is info out there that many of us have read. I can't help it if your ignorant to that. ;)

from Square-Enix, that info is as good as lies.

hint: when a company releases about 3 sentences of facts about a game a year, it does not mean the game is secretly super awesome and development is going well.

[QisTopTier]

Of course it's a Final Fantasy game, so was FFXIII. It's just that everything beyond IX was unable to render an open world and therefore lacked most of what makes the series special for a lot of people. edit: No, Versus doesn't look like a traditional FF game either. I guess I should have specified that it just looks like it may be less of a hallway with j-pop music playing in the background than the rest of 13.

Thats the thing though it still looked like it from all the footage so far.

Except XII has the best overworld any FF has ever had (and Versus is copying its style a lot) So one Jpop-ish song in FFXIII makes it a game that is filled with nothing but Jpop? Please, Hamauzu's best work in XIII is so superior to anything Uematsu has ever done that it ain't even funny.

If versus does copy the 12 overworld I'll be very happy, havent seen anything like that though x.x/

and FF13 has the best battle theme in the series for me, beating out battle on the big bridge

[Forever]

This rumor sounds like a distortion of something else that's been rumbling for a while now, anyway. Just wait and see what happens.

It's been turned into XV, hasn't it?

[QisTopTier]

It's been turned into XV, hasn't it?

The old rumor and videos of versus turning into ff15 was a student made little film thing.

[StuBurns]

Kitase & Co didn't "do it ALL" in one year, but they did develop the content in not much more than 12 months (maybe 14-15).

I do not believe you.

You're illogically narrowing the definition of 'content' down to the point it's meaningless. Maybe the majority of the game was made in the last 14 or 15 months (which is also true of practically every game), but in no way was all the content built in that time.

[Cmagus]

Didnt they just release Somnus in theatrhythmn? I would think if they were gonna let it die they wouldnt have done so to bring any attention. My guess is the game is gonna be moved to next gen on that new engine they just showed.

[Fancy Corndog]

Except XII has the best overworld any FF has ever had (and Versus is copying its style a lot)

Zoning across blue dotted lines and being unable to traverse the world freely via airship means it's not even worth calling a FF overworld to me. Opinions I guess, but whenever someone talks about 'traditional' or 'real' Final Fantasy this is basically what they mean.

So one Jpop-ish song in FFXIII makes it a game that is filled with nothing but Jpop? Please, Hamauzu's best work in XIII is so superior to anything Uematsu has ever done that it ain't even funny.

I was joking about hallways and music. The point is that the game is linear as shit and more focused on being visually appealing and current (in Japan) than being fun or having interesting content.

and FF13 has the best battle theme in the series for me, beating out battle on the big bridge

It very well could be. I saw more mature characters, a more traditional looking battle selection menu, and an open field and I'm hoping for the best.


Honestly at this point whenever SE does something I instantly look for any hints that it could maybe finally starts moving back in the right direction. It seems like they've been going further and further away for the past decade. Recent talk about them wanting to "surpass Skyrim in scale and content" actually has me more excited than Versus, but I'll probably get burned on that as well.

[Heavy_D]

It's been so long since anything new has come out about this game I'm honestly shocked to see that anyone even cares.

Give me an FF7 remake or go fuck yourselves. IMO of course xD