Final Fantasy XV Director Talks About PS4 Pro Version, Maxing Out the PS4 and Much More

Giuseppe Nelva October 22, 2016 1:43 PM EST

Final Fantasy XV is only a little more than a month away, with its release date set for November 29th. Director Hajime Tabata answered a few questions from the fans relayed by HobbyConsolas at Barcelona Games Week, and there are some interesting elements that he shared.

Below you can check out a translation, courtesy of Mognetcentral forum user Lulost (with some minor integrations and corrections).

Q: Will FFXV be coming to PCs? Also, what about the PS4Pro version of the game, the improvements will consist only in 4K and HDR or there’ll be modes/configurations for the player to choose how the game looks?

HT: About the PC, we’re focusing all our efforts into the console versions of the game. So we’re not looking into it right now, to be honest. Making a PC version of the game would mean we’d have to readjust a lot of stuff and concentrate solely on developing it, even though the development team has shown interest in getting a PC version out at some point.

About the PS4 Pro, it’s basically the same thing about the PC – if we wanted to take full advantage of the new hardware, that would mean putting in much effort and time to make the game look and run better… and time is something we don’t have right now, neither we had foreseen the PS4 Pro’s existence before.

That said, we can’t exclude that in the future, with some dedication and time maybe we can get a PS4 Pro version of the game that can take advantage of the ‘capabilities. But as of right now the game has maxed out the PS4 horsepower.

Q: Will the clothes Noctis wore in the first Final Fantasy Versus XIII teaser be available in FFXV?

HT: There are no plans for something like that, mostly because this is not FFVXIII. Of course if there are a lot of people wanting and demanding it, we’d be open to study the possibility.

Q: After we finish the game, can we replay it to see secondary stuff? Also, it’ll be possible to play as old Noctis and his bros?

HT: Sure, after you finish the game we’ll be able to keep on playing and exploring the world after the main quest. About the other question, if you’re meaning that you want to keep all the experience and levels you gained during the first play through, that option won’t be possible on the base version of the game. Maybe we can add something like that through DLC.

Q: I wasn’t referring about that actually: I wanted to know if when we start a New Game+ it’ll be possible to play as young party (normal Noctis and the bros) or old Noctis and co. (old Noctis and the bros).

HT: Oh, I’d rather not answer that. I actually want people to find out for themselves. I don’t want to give spoilers.

Q: Which past versions of the FF franchise has inspired you throughout the development of FFXV? Are there other games that the development team considers as inspiration?

HT: First on the artistic side, mainly the monsters, they’re all inspired by artworks made by Yoshitaka Amano which he made for the classic Final Fantasy series. So we wanted that monster style to give the world a FF saga vibe. About the gameplay and overall, I took inspiration from FFV, but FFXV has its own original elements and innovations.

Q: What are the differences between the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game?

HT: In terms of content, they’re basically the same game. Technically, they’re different pieces of hardware so the most significant difference is about the resolution, maybe. They both run at dynamic resolution and to be more specific the Xbox One version is a little lower on the resolution side, but overall we’re taking full advantage of each piece of hardware has to offer. Players of both versions will be satisfied.

Q: What’s the link between FFXV and Fabula Nova Crystallis if there’s still any, of course. After so much time has passed and with the projects changes it seemed you had troubles fitting the concepts of FNC into Noctis’s story.

HT: We didn’t take the FNC too much into account when developing FFXV, mostly because the world of FFXIII and FFXV are completely different. And I think with each FF title people want stories that can be experienced on their own without much background knowledge or something like that, so keeping the FNC myth from FFXIII onto FFXV wouldn’t be a very good idea.

Q: At any point in FFXV development, did you guys think about a Co-Op mode? Could that be coming in the future?

HT: It was developed as a single-player experience. If people really, really want something like that, we might consider it. It’s very tough to convert a single-player game that was designed as such to a multiplayer game. Even though the possibilities aren’t 0%, it’s complicated, but we can’t exclude the possibility.

Q: Do you think this FF will be valued and treasured as much as the old Final Fantasy games that everyone loves so much?

HT: It’s up to the players to decide if FFXV will be one of the great games among the series. What I can say is that we had work so hard to make a game that the fans can enjoy and like, we want them to feel like it’s a beautiful FF game. We gave it our all ,and hope the fans will be satisfied in the end.