The director behind Final Fantasy XV has confirmed that the hotly anticipated JRPG will ship ‘before 2017,’ seemingly confirming a 2016 launch window for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One title.
Speaking with GameSpot in regards to when Square Enix plans on confirming a release date, Hajime Tabata commented, "At the very least, I can tell you that it isn’t going to be released this year. I think we’ll be able to tell you when we’re making the announcement around PAX Prime, at the end of this month."
"I understand why people are feeling that way after coming to Cologne and speaking to a lot of the media," Tabata-san added. "We really do get the feeling that people are a bit worried. Certainly, one thing I would like to say to them to reassure them, is that we’ve set down the release date, we know when it is, and we’ve got a complete road map lined up, right up to launch, and we’re proceeding along that as planned.
"We can certainly say to people: it’s not going to be 2017. It’s going to be before that."
Final Fantasy XV received a brand new trailer at Gamescom this week, which you can see here. Square Enix previously said that the team wants to ‘embrace western gamers‘ with the upcoming JRPG, and reiterated that it is targeting a global simultaneous launch for the game.
Final Fantasy XV started out life as the PS3-exclusive title, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and has since undergone many changes, with the character of Stella no longer included in the project.