FFXV update road map revealed: new story scenes, avatar system, more playable characters?

One week after the launch of Final Fantasy XV, plans for future support of the game have already been making the rounds. Today, director Hajime Tabata has disclosed what appears to be the outline of a road map going ahead for future updates to be made to the game in the short term to the long term. Points to note include quality of life adjustments to a certain Chapter 13 portion of the game to extended story sequences at the latter half of the game.




Short-term goals

• Enhance the gameplay experience of Chapter 13, which may involve significantly buffing the power of the Ring of the Lucii

Mid-term goals

• Presentation of the criticised second half of the game to be enhanced
• This may include the addition of new event scenes to flesh out and actually show otherwise off-screen events
• This is a mid-term goal as it requires the coordination of all localisation teams as these scenes will have to be voice acted.

Long-term goals

• One such goal is for notable characters in the main story to be available to use as playable characters
• There may even be an avatar system to allow players to create an original character

Other

• New Game Plus
• Various items to allow for low level runs
• Invincibility options
• Font size increase
• Live boss battles & limited mob hunts, etc. that have rewards and achievements

For the full press release:

Thank you for playing Final Fantasy XV. Final Fantasy XV was able to achieve an amazing accomplishment, shipping 5 million copies worldwide on the release day. I would like to express my gratitude for everyone that has purchased it.

Currently I have heard many players around the world enjoying themselves. Players are pleased to be enjoying this new Final Fantasy, as well as the staff, we are really happy.

We’ve promised before launching the game that Final Fantasy needed to be complete before it was released. We will continue to update and we are planning to provide a more rich gaming experience to all players around the world. As a gratitude for exceeding 5 million copies, I’ve decided to strengthen the update plan considerably beyond the original plan and inform you of a concrete road map.
These are updates to make the Final Fantasy XV gaming experience more rich, and for longer playability, updates based on requests from players after the release, and in addition to DLC development reported previously. They will be given for free for the short term, mid-term, and long-term.

Final Fantasy XV Update Roadmap

Short-term goals

First, we will update the experience of Chapter 13’s gameplay. For that reason, we are undertaking many enhancements such as increasing the power of the ring’s magic. We will inform you of the details of updated content at a later time.

Mid-term goals

Updating the production of the second half of the game, further enhancing the experience of the story. For example, we are planning to add event scenes where “What happened to Ravus?” was from. In addition to the event scenes, voice responses and localization work to all languages will occur so we will work firmly on this as a mid-term goal. Details of the plan will be announced once it’s decided.

Long-term goals

We will make it possible to use important characters that appeared in the main game as playable characters. We will also consider adding an avatar system to create original characters. In addition to this, we will continue to actively update so that various players can enjoy Final Fantasy XV for a long time.

Others

After clearing the game, you can carry your progress into a New Game. Finishing it at a low level, an invincible suit, we will offer various items that extend the range of play. Fonts displayed can be enlarged for easier reading.
For the already announced DLC, it is planned to be released as originally intended.

FFXV Holiday Pack
FFXV Booster Pack
FFXV Episode Gladiolus
FFXV Episode Ignis
FFXV Episode Prompto
FFXV Online Expansion Pack: Companion

On behalf of the staff and all players around the world,we hope you will enjoy Final Fantasy XV even more. Thank you for your continued support for Final Fantasy XV and the Final Fantasy series.

FFXV Director Hajime Tabata

Nova Crystallis

 

Mid-term goals

• Presentation of the criticised second half of the game to be enhanced
• This may include the addition of new event scenes to flesh out and actually show otherwise off-screen events
• This is a mid-term goal as it requires the coordination of all localisation teams as these scenes will have to be voice acted.

they should have just delayed the game and put that stuff in it from the start, for crying out loud.

 

So the DLC is for free? That's good then. The paid expansion (I'm assuming Companion, for instance)... I think I might include that in the MogShop in the future. We'll see how much it costs.

My copy should be arriving in a couple days, so can't wait to play it!

 

Ah, even after release, the game is still in development!

Yeah, this isn't new with games today and practically every game now single player or not continue to have content and changes made to it post-release that end up as staggeringly large DLC files. However, I feel the terrible joke above is particularly pertinent when it comes to the rocky development of this game and how long people have been waiting for it.

I can appreciate you trying, Tabata. I suppose other companies would have loved to make these new features part of a post-release paid package, so brownie points for making them free (paid season pass content notwithstanding), but this announcement is essentially a giant warning sign to everyone still playing the game or about to purchase the game to tell them to stop what they're doing and just wait for the patches.

As much as they can try to paper over the cracks with new cutscenes or whatever, I don't think a simple band-aid would work when there is so much wrong with the story that it would need a complete retelling and competently so. At this point they may as well take the loss when it comes to the smouldering, disjointed and laughably told steaming shipwreck that is the story, focus only on the paid character DLC and then polish up or expand more on actual gameplay features. In the end that's what will define FFXV.

EDIT: I have a better joke! This is the second most successful Early Access game this year, behind No Man's Sky!

 

they should have just delayed the game and put that stuff in it from the start, for crying out loud.

They did delay it multiple times and we never knew it was this rushed. What a mess to get early sales and then tell us it isn't finished. I love that this will be free but this is just another destiny in terms of story. Horribly rushed and anticipated. I'll never get hyped for another FF, not even the VII remake until SE can fix this mess.

 

...Okay, now I'm slightly curious. The story is rushed and incomplete? And you guys think that a free patch work (and any future patches) will actually fix this?

More importantly, would it make a huge difference if I wait until patch to play or not? I'm not sure I grasped the entirety of the whole patch deal since I've been avoiding reading reviews or anything remotely related to FFXV's storyline/characters. I absolutely know nothing about this world...or why the even hell they replaced Stella.

Let me rephrase my question. How much longer do I really have to wait in order to get that 'rich' FFXV experience...?

 

If you really want that "complete(?)" story experience, you may as well wait. If you're not fussed about the absence of features like New Game Plus and the ability to halt your leveling up process so you can safely play through the game at your own leisurely pace and not have to worry about being overlevelled for later chapters, you're probably okay to start playing the game now.

Who knows how long you would have to wait for though! As ever with Square Enix, long bouts of patience is how you get by.

No, I don't believe that a few extra cutscenes will suddenly make all that much difference, but it would at least be a chance to provide sorely needed explanations for certain plot points that the game at its current state simply refuses to tell you about, let alone show you. As it stands, the game's second half in particular is plagued with disjointed flashbacks that don't even make sense as to why they were even put there and how the NPC you are talking to can even trigger such a flashback. It's also too content to try and explain entire changes in character motivations and supposed development away using only optional brief notes strewn around all over the environment. The game's script would need to be doubled in length and reworked in how it tells the story to be of service to the potential of the plot, in my opinion.

 

they should have just delayed the game and put that stuff in it from the start, for crying out loud.

<---After two patches

They did delay it multiple times and we never knew it was this rushed. What a mess to get early sales and then tell us it isn't finished. I love that this will be free but this is just another destiny in terms of story. Horribly rushed and anticipated. I'll never get hyped for another FF, not even the VII remake until SE can fix this mess.

I understand your context with the delay, but technically it only got delayed once. Prior to Uncovered, there was never a release date provided. This is not another Destiny even in terms of story. Destiny's story was almost non-existent in the beginning.

...Okay, now I'm slightly curious. The story is rushed and incomplete? And you guys think that a free patch work (and any future patches) will actually fix this?

Let me rephrase my question. How much longer do I really have to wait in order to get that 'rich' FFXV experience...?

Yes, patches can address the situation. The story's quality is not the issue, but rather execution. Depending on how long you have been following the game is going to play a heavy factor in your enjoyment level. For the people going in blind, general feedback has been good for the most part far as I can tell. Far as people knowing of this since 2006, it may not be up to snuff from a story outlook. Even then, the pros far outweigh the cons with the title. Although there have been people that have disliked one aspect of the game, and used that as a blanket stance to view the entire product the same way. The possibility of free DLC had been briefly mentioned in the past before the release of the game, but no details have really been provided in regards to that. I can't answer the other part of your question. It's hard to say how long DLC and other patches will be coming out as of now.

 

...Okay, now I'm slightly curious. The story is rushed and incomplete? And you guys think that a free patch work (and any future patches) will actually fix this?

More importantly, would it make a huge difference if I wait until patch to play or not? I'm not sure I grasped the entirety of the whole patch deal since I've been avoiding reading reviews or anything remotely related to FFXV's storyline/characters. I absolutely know nothing about this world...or why the even hell they replaced Stella.

Let me rephrase my question. How much longer do I really have to wait in order to get that 'rich' FFXV experience...?

Aye, I finished the game yesterday.... okay not finished entirely but I did finish what was the story. It is most definitely rushed and I can tell you that with certainty. The game is nowhere near 50 hours like SE said it was, you can't do things SE said you can do in the world. The only reason you should buy it is for gameplay and the exploration and beautiful world, which is absolutely worth it, in my opinion. For story though? Nah, you will be incredibly disappointed during the 2nd half of the game where the story drags you on a path that will not make sense unless you use your imagination. The ending makes sense but the entire 2nd half is rushed to the ending and leaves you with no satisfaction of characters and plot points. Chapters are incredibly short in this game if you do just story and the longest chapter is quite an excuse to drag something on, but obviously that would be a spoiler if I told you
How long to wait? Heh..... if only I could really tell you. I don't think even a year can fix this mess but that's because my optimist perspective died after finishing the story last night.

 

Ha! A 10 year development cycle and it's still not finished. Geez, this game is such a colossal disappointment for anyone who has followed it since it's conception. I knew this would happen when they decided to go open world. When you spend all that time and money on a big empty map, you end up with not enough resources to actually make interesting content for it.