A Month After Release, Only 30% Of Final Fantasy 15 Players Finished The Game

It’s understandable that most people don’t finish the story campaign in games that trade more heavily on their multiplayer, like Call of Duty or Battlefield. But you’d expect singleplayer-only games to be different, right?

As it turns out, that’s not necessarily the case. In an interview with Hajime Tabata at Gamescom, the developer revealed that the company’s internal analysis showed only around 30% of people had finished Final Fantasy 15 a month after the JRPG’s release. That’s a decently high figure compared to shooters with single and multiplayer modes, but not necessarily so for a single-player only game, especially something as anticipated as a new numbered Final Fantasy.

“There’s a certain metric we use to judge success,” Tabata said through a translator. “After one month from the game’s release, how many players had completed the game, seen the ending, was actually very low. Only 30% one month after.”

“After that, as we continued to go back to the game – we promised this before release, we’re not going to release it and be done with it – and I feel we very much have achieved that. Because recently we checked that metric again, and [the completion rate] is now up to 60%. That really fills us with a lot of confidence, and it’s justified our approach, so it’s something I’m very happy with.”

Another way to read the metric is that around 40% of people who bought FF15 still haven’t finished the game. That’s a fairly cruel take though, as many players buy games and never finish them.

The info does, however, provide some more perspective on Square’s decision to fix Chapter 13 after release. Despite a good reception for the game, the chapter was singled out for being excessively linear, rote and padded to the hilt. A patch then added an alternative, where players could play as Gladio and Ignis rather than running around as a powerless version of Noctis.

Final Fantasy 15 Now Has An Alternative Chapter 13 If you are one of the many people who hated Final Fantasy 15's thirteenth chapter, you will be pleased to hear that you can now skip it entirely. Read more

But the trimmed-down Chapter 13 may not be the only factor behind the improved finish rate. FFXV launched at the very end of November last year, meaning anyone who chose to finish the game over the post-New Year holidays wouldn’t have been included in that initial 30%.

The author travelled to Gamescom as a guest of NVIDIA.