This morning Final Fantasy XV director, Hajime Tabata, spoke in what Square Enix calls their Active Time Report, a live-streamed update on the game’s progress. The news revealed in the report however could certainly be described as a mixed bag.
Though it had already been discussed in prior months that the game wouldn’t have the biggest presence at E3, Tabata confirmed there in fact would not even be a trailer for the game. This of course comes as a surprise given the fact Sqaure Enix is, for the first time, hosting its own E3 press conference. Tabata and marketing manager Akio Ofuj apologized for the back tracking, but promised big things were to come in August with Gamescom, where they plan to show off brand new gameplay.
In the live-stream, there was also a discussion of changes the title is undergoing, specifically that the female heroine that was revealed early in the game’s development, Stella, has been completely scrapped from the game, along with some segments of the game, demoed previously, that were narratively connected to her.
Speaking of the change, Tabata explained, “We wanted to keep her as a heroine in Final Fantasy XV’s story, and pursued ways to tie her in to FFXV’s design as well. But we found it increasingly difficult to make sense of Stella’s character and role within FFXV. So then we thought, do we want to recreate Stella with a different role and image, or do we want to start over with a new heroine? And after a lot of consideration, we decided not to include Stella in FFXV.”
Instead, a different female protagonist has been created, Luna. For more on Luna and Final Fantasy XV, hopefully Square Enix will follow though and draw back the curtain at Gamescom.
Are you disappointed Final Fantasy XV won’t be at E3? Let us know in the comments.