Although Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII’s release is months away both in Japan and in Western regions Square has been pretty actively promoting the game. We’ve had new trailers every month or so to help ease the pain of waiting for the final part of Lightning’s saga.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, Lightning Returns Game Design Director Yuji Abe talked a bit about the game’s development and teased some new characters joining Lightning on her journey.

As seen in the recent Gamescom trailer Fang, a prominent character in the series and party member in the original Final Fantasy XIII was seen fighting alongside our quiet heroine. Abe confirms that more characters will be joining her soon, for the names and more information I guess we’ll just have to wait.

Abe also talked about how the game will now take around 50 hours for players to complete, this is quite a big leap from the game’s original 20 hours claim. The Japanese version of the game which is nearing it’s release in November took a change in development and included a feature to interrupt time. What this did was slow down the inevitable apocalypse that Lightning is trying to stop in the game allowing players to spend more time in each playthrough.

As an interesting extra it was revealed that the recently revealed Heart Stealer outfit (pictured above) for Lighting was indeed based on Final Fantasy VI character Locke’s getup. The game’s Costume Designer Toshiyuki Itahana apparently took inspiration from Yoshitaka Amano’s art style to be faithful to the original design.

Expect to see more on Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII at this year’s Tokyo Game Show starting on the 19th of September. We’ll probably see this new character there too, along with Final Fantasy XV and maybe Kingdom Hearts 3.

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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII hits stores in Japan November 21st and February 11th 2014 in North America for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. What do you think of Lighting Returns? I personally think this mini-series was stretched a bit too much but the game should be fun to play nonetheless. Let us know your opinion in the comments below.

Thanks NovaCrystallis.