New Final Fantasy Versus 13 details

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 21 September, 2011

Nomura talks up AWOL spin-off.

Final Fantasy head honcho Tetsuya Nomura has moved to reassure fans that spin-off Versus 13 is alive and well despite its Tokyo Game Show no show.

Nomura told Famitsu (translated by Andriasang) that gamers can expect a Final Fantasy like you've never seen before. Bosh.

Nomura recently did a walkthrough of the full world map and checked the game's dungeons and side paths in towns. He was impressed with how expansive everything was.

He revealed the game makes use of the recently announced Luminous next generation engine - for the lighting. For the action portion of the game a Versus 13 specific engine is used.

Explaining this decision, Nomura said Versus 13's lighting is being redone, and the team is using Luminous Engine for this purpose. Versus aims for photo-realism, apparently, so it places greater importance on lighting.

Information on Versus 13, a PlayStation 3 exclusive, has been scarce since its announcement.

In July Nomura said Versus 13 still hadn't entered full production - more than five years after it was first announced.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 8 months ago

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  • orangpelupa #1 8 months ago

    photo realism with fantasy character, mobement, and style.
    if executed well it seems will be interesting

  • inutaihanyou #2 8 months ago

    This better blow my fucking socks off Nomura, i'm serious. I was in mother fucking highschool when this was announced.

  • HyperTails #3 8 months ago

    So... is this ever going to be released? I'm beginning to wonder if it will ever see the light of day on PS3, wouldn't be suprised if it ends up on PS4.

  • sfp_noodle #4 8 months ago

    This won't be released on current gen consoles. Considering it hasn't even entered production yet, and the current gen of consoles is coming to an end within the next 2 years, it just would not make sense to release this. I can see this either being a launch title for the Nextbox/PS4 or just ending up cancelled. Considering FF13-2 is going to be completed so soon after the original tells us exactly where SE priorities lie.

    I know this might upset certain console owners, but I also can't see this staying exclusive to PlayStation. SE has gone full blown multiplatform now, it just would not make sense to keep this exclusive. The sales split for FF13 pretty much confirms this. I think it was 55-45% in Sony's favour and that really isn't a lot considering the series connection with PlayStation. I know that SE are saying they're going to keep it on PS3, but the game hasn't entered full production despite being in development for 5 years. I can't see it being profitable by staying exclusive.

  • inutaihanyou #5 8 months ago

    SE isn't saying that. Nomura is. He's in charge of the development team and he made it explicitly clear that he wanted no part of cross platform development because of the time he's invested into the PS3 hardware for this game.

  • HL706 #6 8 months ago

    The fact that it has a world map and exploration is enough to get me interested.

  • Widge #7 8 months ago

    The thing is what on earth is “full production” anyway? I’ve seen vids posted up by someone here showing the game is clearly playable, multiple locations were on show, battle scenes, cut scenes ... so there is obviously a massive amount of work on this done already.

  • iriihutoR48 #8 8 months ago

    Can't wait to play this on the Xbox 360. Everyone knows this'll go multiplatform.

  • Widge #9 8 months ago

    RE: world map. I know that Nomura ditched the entire traversable map with avatar thing, as in PS1 era Final Fantasies. They had a go at it and decided that they didn’t like it.

    From what I saw of locations on show, there were city locations with streets, large scale real time battles with vehicles. There was also a field location which was nice and open.

  • WinterSnowblind #10 8 months ago

    XIII didn't make enough money from sales to cover the development cost. There's not a chance in hell this will stay exclusive, just because the lead developer happens to be a massive fanboy. That just isn't profitable these days, without actually being backed by Sony. It's going to go multiplatform or stay in development hell.

  • God_Octo #11 8 months ago

    As lovely as it all sounds, like others, I can't get over the belief that I'll be too old to play the game when it is eventually released.

  • medicineboy #12 8 months ago

    A bit off topic but does anyone remember some Japanese gamer announce before 13 was released that he would literally kill himself if a Final Fantasy game turned up on Xbox? Anyone know if he erm, went ahead and kept his word? Just curious.

  • HyperTails #13 8 months ago

    @WinterSnowblind

    Why is Nomura a massive fanboy? Because he wants to get the best he can out of the PS3 and take full advantage of its power? Because he's already invested 5 years of time in a PS3 version? Because he doesn't want to have to delay it a year after its finished like Squenix did with FFXIII just to stick it on the 360?

    Its Nomura's call, he's making a PS3 exclusive and isn't going to tailor it to some inferior hardware like the Xbox360.

    Oh, and you say that Final Fantasy XIII didn't make enough money to cover dev costs. Did you pull that comment out of your ass? The game not only sold 6 million worldwide, but its the fastest selling title in the series.
    Edited by HyperTails at 21/09/11 @ 12:09

  • Widge #14 8 months ago

    Actually that could be an interesting decision. I believe iD changed the structure of Rage due to the limitations of the base specification that it was going to be available on. It is entirely possible that Nomura has designed the game to require access to data at any given moment in the game... and not viable to cutting the content into DVD sized chunks.

    Although you could get around this if you structure the game to lock off old locations as you swap discs, like in the manner of the PS1 games.

    But anyway, it’ll all be down to the actual structure of the game.

  • Anciegher #15 8 months ago

    I'm guessing PS4 launch title.

  • deano2099 #16 8 months ago

    If Nomura doesn't want to develop cross-platform then that doesn't stop Squenix from farming out a port to someone else.

  • GundamJehutyKai #17 8 months ago

    Soo... Is vs XIII now officially the next duke nukem forever in terms of vapourwear?

  • Makeem95 #18 8 months ago

    I really wish they would stop getting so hung up on visuals and worry more about fun gameplay (and shipping the damn product within a reasonable timeframe!). Did you not learn your lessons from FF13 & FF14, SE?

  • Bander #19 8 months ago

    Regarding this being a PS3 exclusive because Nomura spent years pissing about with the PS3 hardware, I think most normal people would concede that they made a huge error in judgement by now. Even if the PS4 isn't out, it'll probably be announced with specs and graphic demos by the time Versus is ready. Certainly the Wii U will be available, the next Xbox might be too and PCs will be even more ahead than they already are. The time for current-gen engine optimisation is over, and when the next-gen comes, gamers are going to look back and say 'did I really think there was a difference?'.

    If it's to do with Blu-Ray capacity, just have the game use hard drive installation on the 360, like Forza 3 and Rage.

  • andywilkie35 #20 8 months ago

    I should fucking hope he was impressed if he's in charge of development

  • Widge #21 8 months ago

    You are forced to install Rage to 360 HDD?

  • funkateer #22 8 months ago

    @sfp_noodle

    First, check your facts:
    FFXIII sold a (quite massive) 6.52 million copies, of which 4.70 million on PS3 and 1.82 on 360 (so the split is 72-28 in PS3's favour, not 55-45).
    It has recently been confirmed that FFvXIII has already entered full production.

    I would say that it would make sense to still release it (exclusively) on PS3. Sony probably paid for this exclusivity, and looking at the sales it doesn't seem unfeasible to do so. Especially considering that FFXIII seems more at home on PS3 (considering the quality of the substandard FMV-unfriendly 360 version).
    Remember FFXII was released as kind of a PS2 swan song and still sold great numbers.


    EDIT: Also, FFXIII sold more PS3 copies in japan alone than all 360 combined, so it seems japan will play a big factor in deciding on which platforms to release.
    Edited by funkateer at 21/09/11 @ 14:15

  • WinterSnowblind #23 8 months ago

    @HyperTails
    I never said the game sold badly, I said it wasn't profitable, which Square themselves have stated. This is likely why they're hurrying out XIII-2 (and possibly 3) as quickly as possible and reusing as much assets as possible.

    And Nomura is very well known for his anti-Xbox comments. You can claim it's to "maximize potential" but in the end, he's even thrown a hissy fit and threatened to leave the company if they ever port it. He sounds like a bigger fanboy than the majority of commenter's on here.

  • funkateer #24 8 months ago

    "I never said the game sold badly, I said it wasn't profitable, which Square themselves have stated."

    Do you have a source for that? I tried to find something on the interweb about it, but couldn't find anything.
    Personally I find it hard to believe that a game that sold a whopping 6.5 million copies didn't make a decent profit.

  • Scimarad #25 8 months ago

    I'm still really excited about this one.

  • Bander #26 8 months ago

    Widge, I think Rage is said to come on two DVDs and require a mandatory install. It was optional with Forza 3.

    Anyone care to explain why I got negged?