TieryasXu

E3 2012 wasn’t as mind-blowing as I’d hoped. There were lots of great games and the booths were grandiose as always.  But a lot of the titles on display were ones that had already been announced and there were very few surprises. Just a week before E3, I read a rumor that Final Fantasy Versus XIII was now Final Fantasy XV and that there would be more news coming up soon (this was later confirmed as fake via Kotaku). What better forum than E3 though to get more news out? Unfortunately, walking through the Square-Enix booth, there wasn’t a trace of the game. I asked a few of the marketing people present, and they all replied that they had no additional information.

I wrote a preview for GameDynamo in September of 2011 and the game sounded amazing. Airships had returned, there was an overworld map, story was the focus of the game. What more could gamers hope for? Final Fantasy Versus XIII was going to potentially change/save the entire franchise. At that point, there had been word from the developers that the game had gone into 100% development mode. So something is out there being worked on. Is the Luminous engine related to Versus? Are there going to be updates and changes because of the development of this new next-gen engine? All we can do is speculate at this point. Again, the only responses I got to any questions I had for the Square-Enix people on the show floor were that they didn’t have any news concerning FF Versus XIII at the moment.

I know there were lots of games people were looking forward to; Grand Theft Auto V, The Last Guardian, some new titles on the Wii-U. For me, FF Versus XIII would have made the show amazing, just because I’ve been such a long time fan. As cool as seeing Tomb Raider, Hitman, and Kingdom Hearts for the 3DS were, I would have loved the hint of something related to FF Versus. For now, like a spurned lover, all I can ask is, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, where art thou?

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