Final Fantasy XV - 2nd Season Pass... Where is it?!

Vivi-Gamer

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So we have heard news of an upcoming Final Fantasy XV Season Pass Two... they announced plans for it to spread across 2018 & even 2019 but we're reaching the fall of 2018 and still have yet to hear anything?! I'm very surprised that we had no coverage of this during S-E's extensive offering at this years TGS. We knew his was happening back in 2017, yet I still can't believe how quiet S-E are on this.

Looking back at articles they're saying a 2019 release date:
A total of four more episodes are on the way, though these won't arrive until sometime in 2019...
Episode I: Ardyn -- The Conflict of the Sage
This story portrays the struggles of Ardyn. Witness the resentment he harbored towards Lucis for over 2000 years, and his clashes with the Astrals.
Episode Side Story: Aranea -- The Beginning of the End
A side story about the Starscourge depicted from the Niflheim's perspective. The final day of the Empire turns out to be Aranea's worst day.
Episode II: Lunafreya -- The Choice of Freedom
This story's about Luna's fate, which not even death can free her from. Her battle to save the one she loves overturns the destiny dealt to the Lucian King.
Episode III: Noctis -- The Final Strike
Parting ways with the Astrals, Noctis embarks upon his final battle in order to attain the ideal future for all his people.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-final-fantasy-15-dlc-episodes-revealed/1100-6458042/

I mean are we really expecting to see out content in 2019/2020 for a game that was released in 2016? The 2016 experience was so barebones and incomplete as we all know and I refuse to go back to this game again during mid-development phases. I mean honestly by 2020 I was hoping to hear news on the next mainline FF title... but if we're getting this Season Pass content in 2019 a Complete Edition won't reach stores until 2020 - Which I hope to god follows Shadow of War's UK release by example and gives us a 2nd disc with all the content.

What really gets my goat is that instead of any news on proceeding with this Season Pass 2, we get more tie-in faff than no one wants:

I just want Final Fantasy XV to be over... Sure build it up (Fix it) and complete it but with S-E focusing on this and the troubled Final Fantasy VII Remake I fear we won't see light on a Final Fantasy XVI for a long time. When you look at Capcom in comparison releasing Resident Evil 7 in 2017, a Complete DLC Edition in 2018, then a from the ground up Remake the following year of Resident Evil 2... it makes you wonder what on earth is happening.
 
It wasn't incomplete at release. End of story.

Anyway, despite agreeing with the idea that they should just move on, you've got a lot of misconceptions and missing info in your argument. Again, I still agree that they should move on, and that this is too much space in between the last major DLC and whenever the start of Season 2 will happen, but still. Getting information correct before we complain is kind of important :) So I don't mean this to be rude, but these things are worth pointing out.

1. Firstly, it's not uncommon for games to get content three years out anymore. The only initially strange part about it is that they've been so quiet.

2. However, that silence can be easily explained. Kingdom Hearts traditionally doesn't do as well as Final Fantasy. XV in particularly did extremely well for Square. So while foolish, they're likely being quiet because they don't want the marketing for XV's season 2 to conflict with their marketing roadmap for KH3, since it's due for release in literal months. No reason to cannibalize their own titles, right?

3. ...Nobody said you had to go back to it? You don't seem to care that much about the content or the game, so why be upset? Why not just move on?

4. I'm not sure, but you seem to be under the impression that Square has like one and a half teams that they're frantically tossing members between to complete several projects. I guarantee the team still working on XV's DLC is a very small group, and may not even be an internal team at this point; it might be being outsourced, which is extremely common. They may shift major members around, or get sections of other teams that aren't currently needed in one project, to do some heavy lifting in another project (again, super common). But KH3 has its own team. FFVIIR has its own team. XV had its own team. Octopath had its own team, etc. They're a big company, so it's not like they're spreading themselves super thin.

5. Going along with that, I guarantee FFXVI is at least in pre-production. But we really need to stop hoping that we'll see something from it soon. Square's biggest problem is that they announce things too early. Why on Earth would we want them to do it again, instead of waiting until the game is nearly done. You act like they've got nothing else coming out, despite the mountains of remasters, XV, KH3, FFVIIR, World of FF, and many other pretty major releases already coming out, or making progress in recent years. Is that really not enough? Through all of it, do you really just need something from a FFXVI you can theory craft about? What will announcing it now do other than make the wait for it seem even longer?

6. Hahaha! Sorry, but Capcom hardly deserves praise for doing the exact same thing with the RE2 Remake that you're criticizing Square for. That game was announced just two months after FFVIIR was in 2015... and we'd heard literally nothing about it until midway through this year. People thought it was completely dead, lol. At least Square has kept us somewhat updated (though again, they never should've announced it so early... but neither should've Capcom). As for RE7... yeah... it also had significantly less content and updates added. Capcom likes to cut and run unless they can turn games into live services (like Street Fighter V) these days. So it's of little surprise that they made the game, slapped on some DLC, and then rushed out a complete edition before abandoning the game. That's not really worth noting.

7. The 'development woes' of FFVIIR are -as per usual for the mainstream games media- vastly blown out of proportion. It has been proven time and time again by outlets who aren't obsessed with spreading drama, that there isn't near enough information to know what's actually going on with the FFVII Remake. Literally all we know right now is that Square took CyberConnect2 off of the project and is now developing it in-house. There is no confirmation of nearly anything else; all of it is rumor.

If you don't like DLC... don't support it, I guess? Like I said up top, XV wasn't unfinished at release, despite not really being terribly great at release. They're updating and fixing it because they made some shit decisions, not because they're patching up unfinished holes. The game wasn't great because it wasn't directed well, just like Crisis Core, or Final Fantasy VIII, or Birth By Sleep; bad games simply because they're bad games (I still love you though, FFVIII). Bad games and unfinished games are two different things. Sonic '06 is an unfinished game. Shadow the Hedgehog is just a bad game. If you don't like playing games until all the DLC is released, that's perfectly understandable. But let's not pretend we have some insider knowledge that proves the game was unfinished at launch, and they're now still frantically trying to pick up the pieces, please. They're simply trying to fix the things they didn't do so well (no art is perfect), and make some money expanding the game. There's nothing wrong with that as they're doing it here.

I think this recent crossover quest is purely a way to keep the game alive without getting in the way of KH3's marketing push. It's free, unexpected content, so why complain? As for whether anyone wants it or not, speak for yourself :P Not saying I personally do want it, lol. I don't even know what Terra Wars is. I'm just saying you don't speak for everyone.

Overall, this is more than likely not near as complicated as you're making it out to be. Everyone today is constantly freaking out about random stuff like this, and it doesn't make sense to me. None of us works at Square. None of us develops these games. So isn't it best if we stop and think before we assume the worst? We can still come to the conclusion that these aren't great decisions. Like I said, I still think there's little reason for them to continue adding content to XV, if only because DLC traditionally always does a lot worse than base games in terms of sales, and it only gets worse over time. So even if this is an otherwise optimal situation, they're likely going to make pretty slim profits at best. There doesn't have to be some grand confusion/problem behind simple things like Square being quiet about some DLC :) So why don't we worry about stuff like TellTale screwing over all of its devs instead; a problem we know for certain is happening?
 
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While I totally feel what you feel, Vivi-Gamer and ZaXo Ken'Ichi, but I also disagree in some points.

I understand that you are salty, Vivi-Gamer. I hope you don't mind that I used this verb, I had the courage to do so because I also feel salty when it comes to FFXV, and after reading your comment I feel we are in the same boat. I waited for so long to be able to play this game, it was one of my biggest reasons to buy a PS4 at all. And it was/is also my first game on that console as well. And after watching the Kingslaive movie and the anime, trailer videos and conferences, of course we all had expectations regarding this game. And... yeah, it was really sad to experience that an unfinished-like game was released with all of its plotholes, strange narration and so on.

Look, I don't and won't say that FFXV is a bad game. But I also feel it isn't a totally finished and polished game, and it wasn't that especially when it was released. I don't think that should be normal in the case of any video game (or story) at all, that we have a basic script-like story. I had so many unanswered questions after playing it a year ago. Like what is the mythological setting of this game at all? Who is Ardyn? Does Noctis love Luna as a women or just as a friend? Etc.

Of course it would be normal to have questions. Like I had some after finishing FFVII, too. But not about basic things like the characters or villain(s). I feel that some of the most important (and storywise) basic information were left from this game. So in my opinion a game can't said to be completed if I don't even know why and who I have to fight against... So all the DLCs and later-added cutscenes indicate that this game wasn't unfinished in the eyes of the players. It might be completed when it comes to production team of SE who created the game. But I think it speaks volumes that SE had to add a lot of extra cutscenes and information to the game they released earlier to plug some missing information and plotholes.

So what I mean to say is that I am extremely upset when it comes to FFXV. I waited for so long, and then I got this game where I had tons of unanswered questions (some "information" could be bought as DLC which is ridiculous in my eyes*; some were simply left from the game). I payed a lot to play an unfinished-like game and SE has the guts to ask for more money to get what I should have got in the first place? Of course I am salty and disappointed. And as Vivi-Gamer does, I also wait for the definitive edition (I can pay they price of another AAA game to finally normally play this one, yayy...). I hope after all the DLCs are released and the game finally feel finished not only for the creators but for us, gamers, too, I can replay the game. I hope it will be an overwhelming experience which could erase these aweful memories of the first gameplay I had. I think when Vivi-Gamer said that "I just want Final Fantasy XV to be over...", it was maybe similar/the same as I feel.

///*To be honest, I don't even mind buying DLCs when they add something to the main game. But it is somehow raging that in the case of FFXV I have to wait and pay for something that is important part of the main game! Why couldn't they wait like 2-3 more years and then release a fantastic FFXV with all the DLCs included as the base game? It could have been more expensive but wouldn't be as a horrible experience and disappointment that it was like this... ///

I totally agree with ZaXo Ken'Ichi about not to prepare for the worst when we don't even know anything. Silence can mean a lot of things, not just that SE aren't doing anything at all in this very moment. Silence usually means "in progress" as I experienced. I don't think we have to wait for long to have another trailer or information regarding to the Season Pass 2 DLCs. We just have to wait a little more. :D

When it comes to remasters, I don't feel them a bad thing at all. I have never played any or the RE games for example and I'm excited to have the option to play a remake to experience a more modern/updated version. But I don't think Capcom or SE are any different when it comes to announcement, game quality or anything like that. And I don't think making remasters is a simple task, it surely needs tons of people working hard on them.

I guess nobody should hate SE just because of FFXV. I mean I am salty because of that game, but SE has so many great games that I can't hate them just because what they do/did to FFXV. It can easily be that I make it a much bigger problem then it really is. I know that I had maybe too high expectations. And yeah, the game isn't perfect either but I think it has a lot of great content, emotion, scenes and ideas in it. Maybe after all the DLCs coming out, we might get what we always wanted? Try to stay more positive. :D

By the way, thanks for your comment, ZaXo Ken'Ichi! It also made me realise some things I just didn't know or couldn't realise myself. And it is always nice to see such a well-written and serried comment. C:
 
The reason I don't think the game can be called 'unfinished' (though unfinished-like does describe it fairly well), is because most of the things that are missing are things that Tabata described as intentionally left out. They wanted as much of the game as possible to be from Noctis's perspective. They said multiple times that they tried to avoid showing us anything Noctis isn't also shown. It's why in game we don't learn much about Ardyn, the events surrounding Luna, Prompto's backstory, etc. They wanted it to feel more like we and Noctis were in the same shoes. They completely and utterly failed to tell a coherent story the way they'd intended, but it's because they failed to give us the right information when we needed it. They thought leaving those holes was okay, because that was the intention.

That's why I differentiate between the game being unfinished, and the game feeling unfinished. It's kind of like arguing that Dark Souls is unfinished because its story is designed to be told through environmental storytelling and such that's completely missable, and often missing concrete answers to our questions. But arguing that sounds ludicrous because it's clear that's the way it was designed. The difference is that Dark Souls succeeds in doing this well, and XV fails pretty miserably, so it feels easier to argue XV was rushed rather than that it just didn't tell its story very well. The problem is that -as soon as we start to argue that a game that isn't perfect is 'unfinished', basically every game in existence suddenly falls under that veil, because no game is perfect. As I said before... sometimes bad games are just bad.

At that point, it's difficult to say whether Square choosing to fill in those gaps is good or not. On the one hand, it definitely can be argued that they're making you pay for fixes to the story that 'should've been there at launch', because the story failed to achieve what it wanted to achieve. But on the other hand, it can also be argued that Square had no intention to create most of this extra content, but changed gears when they saw that everyone was so upset. In other words, they recognized their mistakes, and -despite already realizing the vision they'd wanted to realize- decided to compromise that vision to make the players happy. So they retrofitted solutions to the problems people had into the content they were already working on (as well as adding just a bunch of free changes, fixes, and new content they hadn't originally planned on making). With that one shift in perspective, those actions can either be seen as scummy business dealings, or a noble attempt to make up for their failings.

The most important factor for me personally is my knowledge of how separate the business and creation aspects to game design often is. We as consumers regularly conflate the two. But in reality, most studios are just out there to make great art. The people working on these projects just want to make something great. They rarely get paid more if the game sells better. They have very little incentive to make a game that sells better than 'just enough' to keep the publishing branch happy. As such, it's the publisher that cares about the money, not the studio. But the studio does have a lot of incentive to make products they're passionate about making that they think others will love. So it's hard for me to believe that there's some grand conspiracy at work, rather than... you know... a bunch of artists who were working so intently on trying to make the perfect product, that they didn't realize they'd neglected a few parts of the project that ended up being really important to their customers. They missed the forest for the trees, so to speak; happens all the time in artistic pursuits.

EDIT: Lol! What d'you know; right after I left this page, this video showed up in my recommended. Keep in mind, I personally don't 100% trust translated interviews if I don't intimately know the previous translation work of the one translating, because I've seen translators get things wrong almost constantly these days. But if the article cited in this video is actually accurate, then this is what I was talking about:
 
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After reading your comment I definitely feel like I got to know more details about the production of FFXV. I mean... to be honest I didn't really read any articles or interviews regarding to FFXV (nowadays I'm more interested in gaming news and such things than before). I was simply not interested in the people making the game (it may sound harsh but as I'm not interested in writers, only their books either, it might be similar to that), and it seems there were some details that I didn't know. Like what you wrote about the idea to create the game from Noctis's perspective. After knowing that I just realised why this game was so super strange in narration.

I get that Tabata wanted this game to be a little different from the others (like there is usually something different in the newest game compared to the previous ones in the FF series), but I somehow don't really get the idea why using first-person narration in a third-person game (especially if they can't write the story in a great way). I mean it's really hard to tell a story in an exciting and fantastic way when you only see one character's point of view. It's hard to tell more about the world and the other characters or show any turn of events if the main character isn't directly involved. There are tons of things (usually going on in the background) that readers/players miss this way. I don't say it's impossible to create an excellent story with first-person narration, but in most cases that's why writers write from a third-person perspective (often as an omniscient narrator). It's much easier to introduce every character at least, show some nice details so the world feel lively. And of course there are tons of ways to stir the story as well to make it blood-boiling.
I guess FFXV would have been much better if some events of the story had been told from the viewpoint of the other characters? Like they have some secrets and might know more about the world than Noctis. It would have been especially cool if some mysterious scenes or flashbacks had been shown us from the villan's perspective or something.

All in all I understand why he wanted FFXV to be something different, and I'm sad it didn't quite work. But yeah, at least I feel that they try to fix their mistakes by adding/making new story content. Just as I said I feel salty because the game didn't meet my expectations, but I wouldn't mind paying (and waiting) more if I can get what I initially wanted from this game.

Omg, I laughed so hard when I saw you posted this video. I also watched it just before reading your post, Youtube recommended to me it as well. xD
 
Sticking to a single perspective usually creates a less messy narrative arc, and is much better at creating mystery. It's easy for stories that show multiple perspectives to forget what information each character actually knows at any point, which can cause pretty severe plot-holes. Likewise, using a single perspective means you can be sure that your main character only knows what you've shown in previous scenes. That being said, it has its own complications to deal with, since it can be really difficult to show everything that the character/reader/player needs through that one perspective. Like, it can be really difficult to showcase a villain's motivations in great detail without either breaking from the intended perspective (which XV does a few times), or having someone give a giant exposition dump. Usually it's the villain themselves in a cheesy monologue, lol.

I think you'd be surprised at how many stories actually do stick to just one perspective, but you don't really notice purely because the character who's perspective you're seeing is covertly way more observant than a real person would be. Harry Potter is a good example of this. Harry tends to notice multiple things that a normal person would be likely to miss. It's written in a way that conveys the interesting information in a scene, but it all feels like he's the one picking up on this information. The clever delivery of the information doesn't make it feel overwhelming though, despite the fact that a real person wouldn't pick up on so many things at once. I don't think the books break from Harry's perspective more than a very small handful of times. And even when they do, most of the time Harry still has access to that information in one way or another; it essentially tricks you into thinking it's not from his perspective, but it really is. Dreams where he can see what Voldemort is doing is a good example of that. You're seeing someone else's perspective, but so is Harry, so it's technically still Harry's perspective too.
 
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