Nov 092018
Back in April, Square Enix revealed the next four DLC episodes planned for Final Fantasy XV.
These four “Dawn of the Future” DLC episodes would focus on Ardyn, Aranea, Lunafreya, and Noctis.
Episode Ardyn would be a prequel, Episode Aranea was described as a side story, and Episode Lunafreya and Episode Noctis were apparently planned to deal with an alternate future in place of the game’s normal ending.
I wasn’t thrilled with the alternate ending DLC, especially since Luna needed more time in the actual plot, but I was particularly interested in finally seeing Ardyn’s past.
Well… I’ll get my wish, but anyone looking forward to the others won’t.
Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis have been officially cancelled. This appears to be due to a decision to have the new Luminous Productions studio work on an all-new game instead.
Not only that, but Hajime Tabata has left Square Enix to start his own company, though we don’t have any further details yet.
It isn’t all bad news for Final Fantasy XV, though. The standalone version of Comrades is coming out on December 12, there’s going to be a crossover event with Final Fantasy XIV, and Episode Ardyn is still planned for March as the last of the Final Fantasy XV DLC.
Episode Ardyn takes place 30 years prior to the main game… which surprises me. I expected the Ardyn prequel story to be set much earlier. There will also be an animated prologue that shows Ardyn’s reasons for wanting revenge, so that might be more like the prequel I imagined.
If there’s one good thing about the time frame, it’s young Verstael!
(I’m still not over Verstael’s lack of screen time in the main game.)
While I wasn’t too excited for the other DLC episodes and wanted Square Enix to move on from Final Fantasy XV, it’s rough to have them just cancelled like this. I’ll play Episode Ardyn, although I’m a little disappointed the part I wanted to see of his past apparently isn’t in the DLC…
Well, what are your thoughts on Episode Ardyn, the cancellation of the remaining DLC, and Tabata’s departure from Square Enix?
That is very disappointing. 😐 I read those are some of the characters that need the development the most. Still haven’t played the game properly, I got it on PC but had to run it on low graphics and it looked terrible. Pretty bad since it ran okay on medium using the test tool they put out before the game released. I’m hoping to get a new graphics card on black friday though.
It’s a shame about Tabata leaving but maybe now he can go on to do better things.
Luna in particular doesn’t have as much screen time as she should have had for her role in the story to come across properly. I hope you get a good graphics card! 🙂
It’s interesting that some people blame Tabata for the problems while other people feel Square Enix was holding him back. It should be interesting to see what he does on his own. (Just like it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Hideo Baba’s new game, since Tales fans were just as divided on whether he was the source of all the series’ problems or not.)
That really is a shame then. Maybe eventually they will resume it if we’re lucky. Aw, thank you very much. 🙂
Oh by the way! I finished Detention and it was friggin’ AMAZING! One of the top horror games out there for sure, loved every second of it.
To be honest, I don’t know all that much, I just went off of what some random person said. ^^; They made it sound like he pretty much came in and saved FF15 from staying in development for even years longer. Time will indeed be the best judge, as you say.
I wasn’t crazy about the “alternate ending” idea they described for the final two DLC episodes, though.
I’m glad you enjoyed Detention! 😀 I hope the developer’s next game is also good. It’s first-person, but if they keep up the same sort of atmosphere and puzzles, it should be great.
Depending on who you asked, either Final Fantasy XV was a disaster because of Nomura and then Tabata came in and saved it as much as he could, or Final Fantasy XV had potential that Tabata ruined when he took over. XD (The truth is probably somewhere in the middle…)
Me too, if it’s another horror then I’ll pick it up for sure since Detention was so good.
Haha, oh dear. Even if he did take something out of it, at least he actually got the game finished. It’s crazy how long it takes for Square to finish things.
This is all they’ve shown so far, a quick teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEfRkPRxMgc
Not too sure what I just watched. x’D when the camera pulls out it had some serious Silent Hill 2 vibes with the music though. <3
Yeah. XD I hope they show more soon!
[…] the other remaining DLC episodes were cancelled, Square Enix announced that Episode Ardyn would take place 30 years before Final Fantasy XV, and an animated prologue […]
[…] Hajime Tabata left Square Enix and established his own studio, we wondered what he would work on next… and the answer is something no one […]