--- description: Square Enix's new Final Fantasy XV trailer is really, really pretty. title: 8 Takeaways from the New Final Fantasy 15 Trailer image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) ## Tech Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # 8 Takeaways from Final Fantasy XV's Wild-Looking Tokyo Game Show Trailer by [Matt Peckham](/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 18, 2014 3:04 PM CUT by [Matt Peckham](/author/matt-peckham/) ## Matt Peckham Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 18, 2014 3:04 PM CUT Here comes _Final Fantasy XV_, an action game that was never supposed to be 15th. It was originally dubbed _Final Fantasy Versus XIII_ and pitched as a sideline to _Final Fantasy XIII_, a game that was supposed to be acclaimed character designer Tetsuya Nomura’s directorial _Final Fantasy_ debut (he just announced he’s stepping down as director). It was announced over eight years ago and is still without a release timeframe — year or otherwise. Square Enix just broke years of informational rehash at the Tokyo Game Show with a beautiful new trailer that showcases just how far the game’s come, visually speaking. Here’s what I made of it. ## It’s going to be even weirder than usual The more lifelike and post-anime the _Final Fantasy_ games get, the more uncomfortable _I_ get watching photorealistic characters screech and yip and yowl like cartoon caricatures stripped of their cartoon-ness. It’s sort of endearing if you’re a _Final Fantasy_ buff, but it’s also kind of bizarre. ## You can drive a car Apparently. And check out the limo-like wheelbase on that ride. All that’s missing are outward-canted tailfins and you’d be somewhere in the vicinity of George Barris’ modified 1955 Lincoln Futura (that is, Adam West’s Batmobile). ## The game’s pretty much all dudes The trailer treats the only female shown with at least a modicum of respect (by which I mean she’s not half-naked or being bodily ogled by the cameraman). But the rest of the trailer is a dude-fest. Nothing wrong with a bunch of bratty/broody-sounding fellas taking a road trip, but after _Final Fantasy XIII_‘s female leads, it’s a little jarring seeing none here. ## The game takes place on the Isle of Skye Or, since we know _Final Fantasy XV_ actually takes place on a planet that’s somehow tied into Square Enix’s arcane Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos (which includes _Final Fantasy XIII_), call it a lookalike version of [one of the prettiest spots in the world](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye "undefined"). I spent a week back in 2009 driving around Scotland, including Skye, and I’d swear on a stack of [Triple Triad](http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Triple%5FTriad "undefined") cards that those craggy cliffs and scrubby, boulder-cluttered hills in the trailer were imported direct from the land of Talisker, crofting and the [Peatbog Fairies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peatbog%5FFaeries "undefined"). ## World-tech min-maxing! Check out those creepy hover-ships with electric blue lens flare, or the thing floating around the battlefield at 1:56\. Then pay attention at about 1:14\. Yep, those are contemporary roadside power lines, and I’m pretty sure that’s the water tower I grew up down the street from at 1:50. ## The battle system still looks _Kingdom Hearts_\-like I’m sure there’s more to it, but in the trailer, it looks like whoever’s controlling the protagonist is pretty much attack-button mashing, though the maneuver at about 0:55 and another at 1:54 seem to involve tag-teaming. I’m not sure what to make of the sequence at 1:58 where your buddies react to your getting walloped by smacking around the offending creature in retaliation; it looks scripted, but maybe it’s in fact a combat feature? ## No, you probably can’t go anywhere in that ginormous city I’d love to see _Final Fantasy_ pull off something on the wander-anywhere scope of a _Skyrim_ or _Grand Theft Auto V_, but I’d bet my life this thing’s still a bunch of linked areas. The best to hope for, if you’re in the hated-_Final-Fantasy-XIII_‘s-first-20-hours camp, is that the areas are more open-ended. ## It’s not a bait-and-switch for Square Enix’s direct-to-video film _The Neverending Story IV_ Though that crazy-big thing at the beginning does look [a bit like a hulked out version of Morla](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rO2HZKyazw "undefined"), no? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3397784/final-fantasy-xv-tokyo-game-show-trailer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3397784/final-fantasy-xv-tokyo-game-show-trailer/"},"headline":"8 Takeaways from Final Fantasy XV's Wild-Looking Tokyo Game Show Trailer","datePublished":"2014-09-18T15:04:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:03:12.266Z","description":"Square Enix's new Final Fantasy XV trailer is really, really pretty.","url":"https://time.com/3397784/final-fantasy-xv-tokyo-game-show-trailer/","keywords":["Tech","Video Games","Trailers"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Matt Peckham","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/matt-peckham/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3397784/final-fantasy-xv-tokyo-game-show-trailer/","name":"8 Takeaways from Final Fantasy XV's Wild-Looking Tokyo Game Show Trailer"}}]}] ```