For the first time in franchise history, Square Enix will be releasing a Final Fantasy game simultaneously around the globe.

"Up until now in previous Final Fantasies, we've never attempted a complete global worldwide release with them," Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata. "It's always been the export model, where it comes out in Japan first and is then exported to other territories. We're not doing that this time; we want to go full global release."



In order to accomplish this, adjustments had to be made at the studio. "We found that we really didn't have the internal structure which would facilitate doing that. So, we really had to adjust and make sure that ground work was done there internally so we were in a place where we could start doing that."

Adjustments aside, Tabata remains confident the game is very much on track for release next year, with a large portion of its overall structure and core systems complete. "The full specifications of the game and everything [that] is being constructed is pretty much 80 percent," he said. As far as overall completion of the game, however, it appears there's still about 35 percent left to go.



Final Fantasy XV is expected to release next year for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Just last week, Tabata revealed the game may borrow tech from Just Cause 3. In addition, Square released a trio of stunning new images, showcasing a handful of the game's diverse locales.