Final Frankenstein: An interview with the man who created Final Fantasy 15

“When you make a numbered Final Fantasy game, you’re making a theme park,” said Final Fantasy 15 Director Hajime Tabata. “You’re making the whole theme park, with all the different attractions in it.”

Tabata has made Final Fantasies before, but never a theme park.

His work on the mammoth franchise began with Before Crisis: Final Fantasy 7 in 2004, the first of a line of spinoffs he would lead. Later came Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy Agito. The way Tabata sees it, those were all individual attractions within that theme park. Final Fantasy 15 dwarfs all of them in scale, in cost and in age.

The decade-old project was originally Final Fantasy Versus 13. It only started its odyssey as a mainline Final Fantasy in 2013, when Tabata was brought on as director. Developing the game has been a herculean effort for Square Enix and Tabata himself, what with so many things to balance. The tastes of Final Fantasy veterans and newcomers, modern and fantastical themes, frenetic and tactical combat, the ghost of Versus 13 and the new direction of FF15—the task of stitching these pieces into one cohesive whole rests largely on one man’s shoulders.

I spoke with Tabata (with the help of boomingly British translator Gavin Poffley) at Uncovered, FF15’s recent unveiling. The event smacked more of celebration than marketing, a fan-focused festival for a raucous renaissance. A trailer and an anime and Sakaguchi and a movie and a free demo and oh-my-god is that Aaron Paul, I think it freaking is!

When I sat down with Tabata, the atmosphere was different. I saw the smiley Japanese man whose endearing coyness won 6,000 cheers from the show’s crowd. It takes a brave, funny man to ask a stadium of raving fans if he should press the “air button” which reveals the release date.

We were tucked away in an alcove of Square Enix curtains, a black spot on the gilded sea that was the conference room, coffered ceiling overhead and extravagant carpet underfoot. Directors within, demos without. I couldn’t help but be reminded of FF15’s main characters, whose all-black ensemble and car are unmissable in the game’s bright fantasy world. But when marrying the game’s themes and blending story with gameplay, Tabata said, those characters are the solution, not the problem.

“I think the most important thing to get that balance and get it to feel right is the existence of those comrade characters who you fight alongside,” he said. “The most important part of that is having those characters. They’re all governed and act on their own AI, but they really feel like living people with their own personalities and their own way of interacting with you.

“That was the key part in making sure, whatever bit of the game you’re playing, it feels like it’s all one combined story. You’ve got the gameplay, you’ve got the story being told and the personalities of the characters revealed in that way—by having those living characters who feel like they’re real people experiencing all of that alongside you. They're there in the battles and part of the gameplay, as well as in the story, so having that as a system work together was really important. That's how I think we got that balance and everything feels part of one consistent whole.”

Noctis’ crew is one of FF15’s many departures from tradition. In most JRPGs, players expand their party as they progress through the story, adding new faces to their motley crew as new sub-plots emerge. But although FF15’s combat isn’t explicitly nailed to Noctis and the gang, neither does it focus on party expansion. The four core characters are available from the get-go, largely to reinforce the underpinning of camaraderie in Noctis’ story.

“The journey itself is the backbone of the game, but from a development point of view it’s not the journey that’s so important,” Tabata said. “It’s having those partner characters, those comrade characters there. They tie into all the aspects and make everything work together as a game. They’re really the key lynchpin that makes everything fit together.”

The main crew is one of the more prominent remnants of Versus 13. The combat is another standout, a far cry from the menu- and turn-based systems of icons like Final Fantasy 7. Adopting an action system was not an easy decision, but it was one Tabata made early.

“The first thing I did [when I started as director], I decided, right, I want to keep that warp, the sword warping where you can fly and teleport,” he said. “I knew we had to keep that in. I really felt it added something really good to the game.

“With general action games, hack-and-slash type games, you’re kind of limited in the way the whole game and the levels are designed. The distancing is based off how long your weapon is, the relationship between you and the enemy and how far you can strike. Having that sword warp which extends that range really added a new dimension to the gameplay and opened up that distance.”

This won’t be the first Final Fantasy with real-time combat. The string of Final Fantasy 13 games distanced itself from menus as well, to mixed results. Much of the criticism against Lightning Returns, for instance, targeted its in-between approach to real-time and turn-based combat, which many felt was a lukewarm compromise. This and other feedback shaped the fundamentals of FF15.

“We didn’t just look at [Final Fantasy 13] when we were working out the battle system,” Tabata said. “One of the important things in the philosophy of how we put together the game was that we really wanted to have the world, the character and the game system itself as one complete whole with no chopping and changing between different game systems in different parts of the game.

“In doing that, we think we’ve managed to create a state when you can enjoy the adventure without things getting in the way. It’s much easier to get involved and lost in the game; it’s that kind of immersion.”

The game world is a major character in and of itself. Tabata said the ethos of FF15 started with a world very similar to our own. From there, traditional Final Fantasy themes—crystals and kings and catastrophes—were woven in, hence the striking sight of a Chocobo plodding alongside an Audi. The plan is to leverage, not lean on, the history of Final Fantasy. Saving the world with the power of friendship and menus isn’t enough anymore, it seems.

“Obviously, it’s a Final Fantasy game, you have to have that amazing story you play through, but we also wanted to add in many exploration and adventure elements as well. That was really the thinking behind creating the system in that way.

“In my own personal opinion, I think having that feeling of adventure makes it feel a lot more immediate and it feels a lot better than to have commands and do everything on a menu-based system. You have that direct input and you can actually feel what you’re doing there. I think that really helps expand that idea of having an adventure.”

It is still unclear exactly how Versus 13 has colored FF15. It’s a stone fans and rumors have been turning for years: How would FF15 look if it hadn’t started off as Versus 13? I put the question to Tabata, who told me his vision of the game was shaped, but not dictated, by the history of Versus 13.

“Ultimately, I think it probably would be in a very similar place,” he said. “If we hadn’t had that base idea there, certainly for the combat, having that 3D feeling of fighting in a very physical environment with that distance relationship in there, I think I probably would have done something along similar lines. Maybe not the same, but with the same ultimate goals. That feeling of how the combat works, I think I would have created separately. It's something I like to do.”

Without a doubt, Tabata’s goals were hugely influential these past three years. The success of FF15 and the immediate future of Square Enix hinge on his vision of the game, though you wouldn’t know it from how calmly he breaks things down. Crowds roar when you raise your hand, Tabata; you could at least be nervous.

 “It’s been a very difficult, long process, you’re right. But we’ve learned so much in that,” he said. “We’ve worked on how to make cell animation, to create a full CG movie and how to make a modern AAA-class game. All that knowledge and knowhow, that base we’ve built up there, it seems such a shame not to use that. We’d really like to use that knowledge and that base on the next project and make it something that really stems from that.”

And what is next for this smiley director? September 30 is coming up fast, and Tabata said there are no plans for a sequel to FF15. What does the man who spent nigh-on three years in almost interminable crunch time, so slammed that he admits just about his only solace was listening to music in his car, want to do?

“I’m really honored about this, but even before we’ve released the game, I’m currently now getting a lot of offers from various bodies and companies about what we want to do next and what we want to work on after [FF15],” Tabata said.

“I think what I want to bring into my line of vision, what I’m considering for my next project, I’d really like to maybe do something that we couldn’t do as a complete project alone just inside Square Enix, and move out and cooperate with someone to make something even bigger with another company somewhere.

“But obviously, what opens that door for me is how well [FF15] does as a game. So for the time being, until we get the game out, I’m going to concentrate on my work and keep listening to that music in my car.”