Final Fantasy XV has been officially delayed to November 29, 2016. According to Square Enix, the new release date will allow the development teams to “further polish and conduct quality testing so that the reality of the game can match the expectations of both the fans and the creative teams.” The company did confirm that the new release date is a global one.
Square Enix released a video featuring game director Hajime Tabata to explain the cause of the delay: “From the moment we joined this project, our vision was to create a level of freedom and realism previously unseen in the series. Regrettably, we need a little bit more time to deliver on this vision and are confident that this new release date will help us achieve this,” he said. “As the director and lead of this project, I wish to personally apologize for the additional wait. As a team, we want Final Fantasy XV to achieve a level of perfection that our fans deserve. We kindly ask for your understanding.”
Essentially the team believes it has a version of the game that could ship, but it would have to release a substantial day-one patch. As a result, the developers felt that would be unfair to those that can’t connect online, don’t have fast Internet connections, or even worse, data caps, so the two-month delay is in place so that they can continue optimizing the game. Considering it has been over 10 years since the game was first announced as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, two more months doesn’t seem all that bad.
Recently, No Man’s Sky launched with lukewarm reception by the media and gamers, with numerous reports that the game performs poorly on the PC. No Man’s Sky also had a substantial day-one patch that changed many of the game’s core features, essentially creating two different versions of the game for those with an Internet connection and those without.
Sometimes game delays can cause concern, but in other times, developers have used the time to properly optimize their games. Uncharted 4 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt were both delayed, for example, and both games turned out just fine. Hopefully Final Fantasy XV follows in those footsteps, and it’s becoming more obvious that Square Enix really wants the game to be the best Final Fantasy yet.
