FF Versus XIII yet to enter production

By Tom Phillips Published 14 July, 2011

I can't wait Nomura.

Square Enix's long-awaited Final Fantasy Versus XIII still hasn't entered full production, more than five years after it was first announced.

Versus XIII director Tetsuya Nomura told Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu (translated by Andriasang) that development on the PS3 game was still limited to a "core" section of workers, though that group was now prepping the project for full production.

Due to "trying out a lot of new challenges, the development staff is still focused on the core members," Nomura explained.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII was first revealed during E3 2006 without a release date. Updates the project have been sporadic ever since, until in January this year Nomura warned Final Fantasy fans to forget the game for now, suggesting the game would likely launch during 2012 at the earliest.

Despite this, it's clear at least some parts of the game have now been assembled - new playable functions for the game's real-time event scenes have been implemented and work on the game's voice recording has begun.

Even the few impressive glimpses we've seen of the game's graphical quality have apparently now been upgraded with new lighting technology.

Square Enix has already internally set a date for the next big Final Fantasy Versus XIII reveal, Nomura assured gamers. We'll get some "good" information, but when that will happen Nomura couldn't say.

January's Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • HyperTails #1 11 months ago

    Well something had to take Duke Nukem Forever's place of having a lengthy development!

  • TomDent93 #2 11 months ago

    Ummm, okay.

  • lcmnick #3 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 12:48:44 14-04-2012

  • Shotofen #4 11 months ago

    I don't care what anyone else says...I loved FF13 and this game looks too good to be true. I hope that the trailer above wasn't smoke and mirrors, 'cause if it wasn't it looks stunning.

  • KimboDice #5 11 months ago

    Just get FF7 in production already your pissin me off!

  • Hindle #6 11 months ago

    Post deleted at 23:04:43 04-04-2012

  • Anciegher #7 11 months ago

    Release date fall 2014.

  • DozyKipper #8 11 months ago

    Launch title for PS4. LOL.

  • HL706 #9 11 months ago

    5 years!?

    That's alot of corridors to design! Maybe they're adding an extra button to the combat controls - or perhaps they've remapped the action button due to all the broken A/X buttons that XIII caused.

    Just give me FFX on a next gen console and I can be done with Final Fantasy forever :)

  • ro-kurorai #10 11 months ago

    @HL706
    My friend, you forget that Nomura Tetsuya is the game designer of vXIII, not some 360-twitch-gamer appeasing newb. So no, there won't be many corridors. A world map and transportation are a given ;)
    No worries mate. Quality requires time. I have faith in Nomura and don't expect this to be another GT5.

    @topic
    Nomura can take all the time he needs. Versus looks already way more exciting than XIII and XIII-2 combined. Guess TGS 2011 is gonna host the mentioned reveal. Can't wait for more info. Until then Tales of Xillia will have to tide me over until the best JRPG this generation hits.
    Edited by ro-kurorai at 14/07/11 @ 13:45

  • geeza2020 #11 11 months ago

    Yet to enter production - Maybe because they've realised they lost hordes of fans as a result of releasing the steaming dog turd that was FF13?

  • Widge #12 11 months ago

    Well, there certainly has been a load done. A video appeared of Versus and it was looking really good. Big free roaming areas, vehicles, 3rd person shooty characters.

  • scuffpuppies #13 11 months ago

    When Square Enix talk of "full production", they mean from moving from our "full" size teams of 40 - 80 people, to 150 - 200 people. The Japanese have a very well oiled, albeit regimented development system, against our more organic Western system.

    Both work for their respective cultures. So naturally I prefer our development cycle allowing a smaller number of people a larger responsibility to the whole. Rather than a larger number of people a smaller responsibility to the whole. But that's me.

  • orangpelupa #14 11 months ago

    "Even the few impressive glimpses we've seen of the game's graphical quality have apparently now been upgraded with new lighting technology."

    really hope the light quality increase.....
    in the gameplay trailer especially in night and indoor night, it looks very bad....

    btw with this very long development, they sure burn a lot of money. Wondering if it will be released as true multiplatform (WiiU,PS3,Xbox,PC)

  • ruddiger7 #15 11 months ago

    This better be worth the wait. Square has been out of touch lately

  • Ikaros_O #16 11 months ago

    Could this be the game FFXIII should of been? Only time will tell...

  • geeza2020 #17 11 months ago

    should "have" been

  • Makeem95 #18 11 months ago

    They probably had to move most of the dev to FF14 to fix that pile of steaming turd.
    Thanks FF14, I really wish you'd just die now.

  • Zozzilla #19 11 months ago

    I'm more interested in this game than XIII-2, and they've barely touched it. ._.

    Edit: Well excuse me for being a woman and wanting to play as a hot guy instead of a female Cloud!
    Edited by Zozzilla at 14/07/11 @ 17:23

  • bluetoothion #20 11 months ago

    it was fairly good at the time of its first announcement now it seems it desperately needs the full production polish to stand its ground and a chance at this market....squarenix has lost some trust points lately too

  • Incarta #21 11 months ago

    Still, looks like it will be worth the wait. Unlike DNF.

  • alcides #22 10 months ago

    It's going to be a shit. Like Crystal Bearers before it. I don't even expect it to be half as good as FFXIII. Usually with lenghty devs like this, the guys don't have a shit clue what they're doing. Anything happening now I expect to be damage control.

  • Laythe_AD #23 10 months ago

    FFXIII was one of the worst RPG's ive ever played. I see no evidence that this wont be as bad a game with real time combat instead of turn based. With any luck, by the time this comes out, Persona 5 will be on the horizon and I can look to that, and possibly Tales of Graces, from the japanese market. Meanwhile, The Witcher 2 is the best RPG i've played in years.

  • Lord_Gremlin #24 10 months ago

    Well, can't say I'm not interested. First PS3 exclusive FF... Please, please make the world huge! This way there is always a place to run away from tonberries.
    I frikkin hate tonberries.