Final Fantasy XV Director Would Like a Simultaneous, Worldwide Launch

The director of Final Fantasy XV hopes that his open world RPG launches in the North American, European and Japanese markets at the same time.

In an interview with the South American game site, LevelUp (courtesy of Gematsu), Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata stated that he wants a simultaneous release worldwide for this anticipated RPG. Typically, Japanese role-playing games don't hit the West until months after their debut in the Land of the Rising Sun for the sake of translation.

“I’d like to be able to do a worldwide release,” Tabata said. “We don’t want to impose any big delays to players from around the world, so I’m hoping that everyone will be able to play the same Final Fantasy XV together within as close of a time frame as possible.”

In particular, RPGs' vast amounts of text and dialogue need to be translated in order to properly port the game over for Western audiences. Now, voice acting is a pivotal part of JRPGs. Since Final Fantasy XIII had a rather abysmal script and subpar voice acting, we're not really hoping that Tabata rushes the North American and European releases of FFXV. To put things into perspective, Final Fantasy XIII debuted on Dec. 17, 2009 in Japan, and got its Western release on March 9, 2010. All we're going to say is that rushing to make a deadline is what ruined a lot of games in 2014, Tabata-san.

While no launch window for Final Fantasy XV has been set, we have a feeling it won't debut on PS4 or Xbox One until well into 2016, based on how Hajime Tabata spoke about its development. Its North American release could take even longer. Final Fantasy XV's demo will be an exclusive to owners of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, which hits Xbox One and PS4 on March 17.

Can we summon a release date that's much sooner?