FFXIII world for 10 years

By Robert Purchese Published 25 April, 2007

Base of multiple products.

Square Enix producer Shinji Hashimoto has said we'll be revelling in the world of Final Fantasy XIII for a decade.

He was speaking to Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream when he used the next-generation offering as a comparison between an evolving storyline and a completely new one, upon which multiple products could be based - much like iterations in the Star Wars series or Harry Potter saga.

"Different from something like VII, which we expanded upon afterwards, with Fabula Nova Crystallis FFXIII we thought about an expansive world setting from the start," Hashimoto said in the interview partially translated by IGN. "Under the idea of wanting everyone to be sucked into the world for 10 years, we're preparing a number of categories."

Until now each new Final Fantasy game had been an individual story in a larger series. And although they shared familiar aspects, pretty much all came to their own conclusion - with the exception of Final Fantasy X, which spawned Final Fantasy X-2.

"If forced to give the essential common points for [Final Fantasy], there are Chocobo-like living creatures, there are crystals, there's travel via air ships, there are items such as potions... and the genre is RPG," Hashimoto added.

"While there are some exceptions, in general there aren't 'sequels', so the games that are part of the 'numbered series' will always come to a self-contained conclusion; VII's sequel is not VIII, and VIII's sequel is not IX."

The Fabula Nova Crystallis, or "the new tale of the crystal" series is made up of two games for PlayStation 3. Final Fantasy XIII will be the first to launch followed by sequel and alternate tale Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

A demo for FFXIII is expected sometime this year. A release date for the game is yet to be confirmed.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • Steroyd #1 5 years ago

    Milking the Final Fantasy XIII name for ten years oh joy.

  • Tomo #2 5 years ago

    Sounds... ambitious.

  • varsas #3 5 years ago

    If it's like Shining Force III then it's a very cool idea!

  • Aretak #4 5 years ago

    "Now we are giving players the opportunity to buy lots of games to get the whole story, rather than just one. We feel this is what our fans want. Well, that's what our shareholders told us anyway."

  • Keso #5 5 years ago

    Cool beans. FF X-2 was far better then X anyways ;)

  • OnlyMe #6 5 years ago

    If the world is interesting enough, then why not? It's not like Metal Gear Solid takes place in different worlds. Heck, we've had Ivalice since 97 or so haven't we?

  • Mr_Brown #7 5 years ago

    sounds like a good idea. Moaners should get used to it. You moan about minor graphical problems and 'bad graphics' well this is the price you must pay. Developers cannot afford to bang huge games like this out and then move on anymore.

    Ether way should be a good thing, its a bold claim to make as there doesn't seem to be any info or much on FFXIII world, their assumption that this will be so good they can milk it for 10 years fills me with hope. Especially as it took about that long for them to start milking the FFVII world. They are definatly picky.

  • Killerbee #8 5 years ago

    Thirteen... unlucky for some?

    Actually, I don't mind this idea, just as long as SquareEnix manage to keep the quality up. None of the Final Fantasy VII spin-offs so far have managed to come close to the original game and to a certain extent I wish they'd just left it alone.

    X-2 worked fairly well as a follow-on to X but I've actually never wished for a direct sequel to any Final Fantasy game. I kind of liked how I could pick up the series at VII with zero prior knowledge of the franchise and still get into it.

    A decade is a hell of a long time in gaming terms...

  • CitizenGeek #9 5 years ago

    This is great news! Of all the FFs I've ever played, I've always wanted more after the ending screen. At least with FFXIII, I'll know there's more on the way! :)

  • Nithron #10 5 years ago

    Oh please. Everyone who watches the news knows that in ten years time we'll all be wiped out by endless waves of knife-carrying terrorists who keep vicious dogs and use a potent cocktail of SARS, MRSA, BSE and the MMR vaccine(It causes autism don'tchaknow) as the chemical warfare agent to end all chemical warfare agents.

    Oh, and then global warming will melt all the ice in the world making slush puppies impossible and causing the remaining survivors to commit suicide.

  • lambtron #11 5 years ago

    You forgot to mention the only reason their plot will succeed is that education is so much worse now than it was in the past and in my day it was all green fields, all I had was a football to kick round a field of thistles, barefoot. BUT WE WERE HAPPY.

  • manic_mouse #12 5 years ago

    The same world for two generations of consoles?

    Erm, OK.

  • MasterControlProgram #13 5 years ago

    *** YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN ***

    /wakes up in 2017

    Oh look, people playing FFXIIZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  • Galvanizer #14 5 years ago

    I KNEW IT!

    My prediction below is almost coming true!

    - FFXIII will last the WHOLE of the next gen and will be on various platforms.
    - FFXIV will be the next online game which will also last the whole of next gen and possibly more!
    - FFXV will NOT be released this hardware generation.
    - At least one FFVII game or a remake of the main one will be released on current gen hardware.

  • dolphan #15 5 years ago

    Is it me or is Fabula Nova Crystallis a really, really stupid name?

    Well, this will probably be the reason I eventually buy a PS3. Sad, I know.

  • Aegus #16 5 years ago

    Isn't this like old news?

  • HermitArcader #17 5 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • ecureuil #18 5 years ago

    I think this is a really great idea. Rather than building the numbers up, they can get us really involved with the world of FFXIII.

    I don't really see a problem, and it's not milking the title. Something like Halo has direct sequels, and you don't hear people complaining.

  • sonsonate #19 5 years ago

    I guess I'm in the minority.... I am absolutely tired of FFVII and the "Will Cloud be in it?" question. Having played FFVII, I would say that the story was so muddy and unclear and even the instructions given to the player at times were wrong.

    I'm also tired of the spikey, near-feminine heroes in this world. Hey Keso, maybe if you are a girl, you could enjoy 10-2 more than 10. The intro alone made me want to strangle myself. 10 more years of this style? Maybe people will FINALLY get tired of this dead horse. *JADED* I could use another FF Tactics though, since it is always fun to catch swords flung at you from below by an army of ninja. Not Tactics Advanced mind you, Tactics. And btw: Cloud wasn't so hot in Tactics unless he got Quick Charge. Give me my customized grunt or Beowulf or Orlandu instead. Hahah!

    My advice to Square-Enix: get rid of the numbers and use descriptive words instead. Like, Final Fantasy: The Return of Cloud, Final Fantasy: Cloud Fans' Dream, and so forth.

  • Anora #20 5 years ago

    OMG KESO, PLS EAT YOUR NUTRIENS

  • bdc #21 5 years ago

    Why not? It's currently working for VII isn't it. People still play that masterpiece.

  • Vandrius #22 5 years ago

    Naysayers, the lot of you! FF for teh winz!

    *pulls out fanboi naysayer-smacking-whale and starts the beating*

  • Moz #23 5 years ago

    @michalis, well the PS2 has lasted nearly 7 years and is still going strong!

  • rhinoxious #24 5 years ago

    If the two FFXIII games are different ways of selling the same game emgine and graphical content to me twice, justified by different storylines, locations, etc then I'm not too impressed.

    A final fantasy game already has enough hours of gamepley in it to sate me of the style/genre completely till the next one. I'm not sure I'd want to play a semi-sequel for another 80 hours only a year or two later if it used an identical combat system, mastering the mechanics is most of the fun for me.

    Maybe they'll just cut one FF game in half, and make two 40 hour games, then double their profit!