The director behind Final Fantasy XV has revealed that the hotly anticipated JRPG features a more linear story path towards the second half of the game.
While the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One title allows players to explore a fully open-world setting ripe with side quests, the narrative adopts a tighter flow as the player gets further into the game.
Related – Final Fantasy XV will last over 200 hours in total
“The entire game structure for Final Fantasy 15 consists of both open-world and linear parts,” Hajime Tabata told Famitsu (via GamingBolt). “The first half keeps going as an open-world, but the story in the second half’s is led by a linear path. That way, you won’t get bored of an open-world as the rest of the game gets tightened up, so we made it in a way that you’ll also get to advance through it as you have in conventional Final Fantasy games. If you play through the first half and only the main route of the second half, I believe the estimated play-time sits at around 40 to 50 hours.”
Final Fantasy XV release date set for winter 2016
Final Fantasy XV is scheduled for release on PS4 and Xbox One on November 29, 2016. The game was originally pencilled in for release at the end of September, but was delayed for extra polishing.
Square Enix originally announced the game at E3 2006 as the PS3-exclusive Final Fantasy Versus 13, although the project was scrapped when it was roughly 25 percent complete. As a result of the decision, some aspects of Versus, such as the character of Stella, did not make the transition to FFXV.
The accompanying CG movie, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, is due out on Blu-ray at the end of this month.