Square Enix News This Week: FFXII: The Zodiac Age has a release date and FFXV DLC updates dated

The 30th anniversary of Final Fantasy has kicked off, with a bizarre opening ceremony of sorts in Japan involving the announcement of Cup Noodles themes around various bosses and villains in the franchise, a sword fork to eat your noodles with, some overpriced wine, a manga, and various other miscellaneous merchandise. The major news this week however, are to do with FFXII: The Zodiac Age's release date and when we can expect the first wave of major DLC updates for FFXV to arrive.
Let's kick things off with Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. This remastered edition of the game is currently exclusive for the PlayStation 4 and will be based on the as-unreleased International Zodiac Job System edition that has for over a decade been exclusive to Japan, unless you were using more legally grey emulation means.

The title will also feature a remastered soundtrack, 7.1-surround sound, an auto-save feature, faster loading times, a new Trial Mode and more. A new key visual artwork has been designed by Akihiko Yoshida, who had also originally worked on the artwork for the game.

The game will hit store and digital shelves on 11 July in western territories, followed by Japan on the 13th.

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If you were hoping for any substantive news on the FFVII remake, you may wish to put those hopes down now and ready your disappointment.

A new key visual was released, which will probably make for a decent wallpaper, but it's no substitution for substantial information on how the game is coming along and what we can expect from it. At most, we have learnt that the development team will not remove any parts of the original game that were well-received, such as the Materia system.


Producer Yoshinori Kitase hopes to be able to show more progress of the work sometime this year, though he cannot commit to a set time, musing only that he would like there to be a trailer or even some kind of playable segment when they next reveal more of the game. When Famitsu magazine pressed about a prospective remake of Final Fantasy VI, Kitase coyly stated that while there are members of staff who would like to see such a project come to fruition, the remake for Final Fantasy VII is the focus right now, and anything to do with FFVI is on 'reserve'. Take that as you will.

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Go, go, Magitek Rangers! Dun duuuuun dun dun dun! Go, go, Magitek Rangers! Duuuuun, dun, dun, dun, duuun!

If you ever asked for a set of brightly coloured superhero costumes to aid you in a pickle, look no further, for the 'Booster Pack' DLC will grant your bros with attitude to gain temporary invincibility for 30 minutes. Once the suits' juice has been expended, they will need up to 24 hours to recharge.

If you want your bros to temporarily become the Mighty Morphin' Magitek Rangers, they're coming out on 21 February. Grab them quick while this recipeh is still fresh on Ignis's mind.


Also on the 21st of February, look forward to an actual PS4 Pro patch at long last.

Here’s the full rundown on what you can expect in update 1.05:

• PS4 Pro support at 1080p/60 FPS
• Time-limited quests
• Level cap raised to 120
• Picture limit raised from 150 to 200
• You can now use the music player while riding a chocobo

It won't quite be a consistent 60 frames per second, though Tabata promises that it will still be roughly close.

If you're still aching for more Final Fantasy XV and you hold the season pass, why not consider downloading Episode Gladiolus come the 28th of March? This installment features Gladiolus and Cor Leonis engaging in their own little adventure away from Noctis and gang, and confronting a certain sword-collecting, dimension-jumping, kabuki-wannabe recurring Final Fantasy villain.


At the same time, a patch will also amend the controversial Chapter 13 portion of the game, as well as provide some story enhancements, the details of which remain foggy.

Come June, Episode Prompto will be made available. Ignis's chapter will presumably be several more months following that.

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