Final Fantasy 15 Director Speaks on Eidolons, Airships and More

The director of Final Fantasy XV, Hajime Tabata, speaks out on what makes this open world RPG a lot different than the previous incarnations of the series.

In an interview with GameSpot, Hajime Tabata weighed in on the dungeons, Eidolons, enemies and open world of Final Fantasy XV. In particular, he mentioned that Final Fantasy XV is set on a giant, connected land mass, which players can fully explore. Players will be able to use cars and trains to traverse this immense landscape.

"The world is connected by continuous land," Tabata said. "If those areas were disconnected, it would feel distant from reality. You’ll find that you’ll be able to walk or drive or take a train and travel through this world seamlessly. I feel you’ll be able to experience something similar to a real trip."

"The towns and the cultural references that you see throughout the world, you’ll get a sense of realistic towns and cultures. That’s one aspect that has remained since the title was first named Versus XIII," Tabata added. "The first town that was showcased was based on Shinjuku in Japan, and one area we showed in December [FFXV's most recent trailer] was based on Havana in Cuba. And the other watery town we showed is based on Venice. So those are some cultural references that have been made within the game."

With a massive countryside to explore, the big question is whether or not the series' iconic airships will be making a return. We've already seen that the technology of FFXV's world already has the capacity for flying ships and planes. We just hope we actually get to control one. In particular, we hope the airships are not like the simple town/zone selection screens we had in the later games of the series.

"To be completely honest, that’s still to be determined," Tabata said in regards to airships. "But the development team does understand that this is something everyone is looking forward to. It is a huge technical challenge; as mentioned earlier, all areas are connected. We are trying to tackle that challenge. So at the moment we can’t say yes, they will be included, but we do want to and we’re ready to take on that challenge and see what can be done."

If Square Enix hasn't even decided on whether or not airships will be included in Final Fantasy XV, we have a feeling it's still nowhere close to being done.

Tabata mentioned that Eidolons, the summoned monsters that would help your characters out in battle throughout the series, will play a pivotal part in FFXV's plot. Eidolons will be the acting guardians of the planet. Sometimes, they'll have to fight humanity in order to protect their domain.

Final Fantasy XV doesn't have a release date yet (we have a feeling it won't hit North America until 2016), but it will be coming out for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Buying Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, which launches on March 17 for PS4 and Xbox One, will grant you exclusive access to Final Fantasy XV's demo.

Final Fantasy XV's summons are just a little bit bigger than these: