‘Final Fantasy XV’ Gameplay Takes Place Over 10 Years, According To Director Hajime Tabata

Final Fantasy XV Director Hajime Tabata teased new information about the game’s story during PAX West 2016.

Tabata revealed to IGN the image of an older, bearded Noctis shown during Gamescom 2016 was, in fact, a part of the end game. The overall story for Final Fantasy XV takes places over 10 years.

“In the opening sequence, you see Regis and Noctis talking to one another and Regis tells him to stand tall,” Tabata told IGN. “His appearance later on in the game communicates that he has [taken] that to heart and lived with those final words. The whole change in Noctis’ appearance from when the game starts compared to when years have passed [is so] that people would feel the passing of time, and that they were actual living, breathing characters rather than just symbolic characters.”

Tabata added there’s no “deep” reason why they decided to tell the story over 10 years other than they needed to make a time jump to progress the story. The Final Fantasy XV director also liked seeing a middle-aged man as the main character, which is not common in Japanese RPGs.

As for the game’s delay, Tabata addressed the push for a November launch back in August in a YouTube video . In case you hadn’t heard, Tabata’s team felt it necessary to push the release to avoid players from having to download a huge patch that would disrupt gameplay.

"Our objective with Final Fantasy XV was to deliver a Final Fantasy of the highest possible quality to every single person who buys the game," Tabata said. "We have completed the master version but when it comes to that highest possible quality, we felt that we had not quite reached that version yet. In order to make this master version an even better product, we have been creating a downloadable add-on known as a day-one patch."

Read the full interview with IGN here . Final Fantasy XV launches worldwide on PS4 and Xbox One on Nov. 29.