Blockbuster development ain’t easy
Final Fantasy XVis a huge and expensive game, probably. Since its rebranding fromVersus XIIItoXVwith a cool trailer — holy crap,two years ago— we’ve mostly been shown the area that would go on to be the demo included withType-0 HD. There’s even more synergy there than we’ve thought.
Independent developer HexaDrive, which worked on3rd Birthdaywith Square before focusing on HD remakes (Okami,Wind Waker,Zone of the Enders,Type-0), has been working onFinal Fantasy XVsince just before that 2013 trailer,Final Fantasy XVdirector Hajime Tabata revealed inFamitsu(viaGematsu).
Taiwanese studio XPEC is another external studio providing development support. Square realized it couldn’t make an HD game with its old development model so it took members from its tech department, CG movie department Visual Works, as well as additional outside engineers.
Though this isn’t new for Square Enix. Now defuncttri-Acehelped onFinal Fantasy XIII. As graphical fidelity and detail go up, so too does the manpower needed to build games of this scope. I mean,Assassin’s Creed IVused seven developers.
