Interested in exploring more of the Final Fantasy XIII story? You may get your chance if the game's producer and director have their way. In an interview in the latest Final Fantasy Ultima guide, which hit Japanese bookshops on the 30th, producer Yoshinori Kitase said that he's interested in making something that, by showing additional areas of the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology, helps players to better understand the FFXIII story.
Fabula Nova Crystallis is the name of the overarching series that encompasses Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII. The games share a common mythology, but otherwise appear to be unrelated.
The interviewer asked Kitase is he could be referring to a "Final Fantasy XIII-2," a reference to the naming used for Final Fantasy X's sequel. Kitase responded that this would depend on fan reaction.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kitase revealed that the team that made Final Fantasy XIII is at work on their next project. According to Kitase, Square Enix has a policy of each team making a game at a pace of one title every two years, so the wait for this title will presumably not be too long.
FFXIII director Motomu Toriyama gave a couple of hints about this game. First off, it does seem to be in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, as Toriyama told player to look forward to it along with other games in the series. Additionally, he said that he hopes to incorporate into the game stuff that they were unable to do as download content for Final Fantasy XIII.
The FFXIII team originally had some big download content plans, Toriyama and Kitase revealed in the interview. Plans were in place for an area called "Seventh Ark" which would feature "quest-like play" and "free battles." This was put on hold because it didn't reach the desired quality and because of the major differences between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 network systems.
Downloadable weapons or other simple content would have been easy to implement, noted Kitase. But the Seventh Ark area was to have an exclusive play style different from the main FFXIII, making it more complicated. For his next title, he said he'd plan for online elements and DLC from the start.
Square Enix will be holding a Fabula Nova Crystallis press conference in January in Tokyo. Perhaps we'll get a glimpse at the new game from the Final Fantasy XIII team there.
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