Final Fantasy XIII - Development

Development

Development of Final Fantasy XIII began in April 2004, after the release of Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission in Japan. The game was developed by Square Enix Product Development Division 1. At the time, the game was intended to be released on the PlayStation 2. However, after the positive reception of the tech demo of Final Fantasy VII in May 2005, the team decided to move the game to the PlayStation 3 and developed it with the new Crystal Tools engine, a seventh generation multiplatform game engine created by Square Enix for its next generation games. Square Enix believed that developing a new engine would speed up development time later in the project, though it would initially cause a delay in the game's development. However, the delay was longer than originally anticipated as the engine had to accommodate the requirements of several other games in addition to XIII. Final Fantasy XIII was first shown at the 2006 E3 convention. The trailer shown was an artistic concept that did not represent the final concept for the game, since at the time there was no playable form of the game. Announced alongside the game was Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the PlayStation Portable game Final Fantasy Type-0, originally titled Final Fantasy Agito XIII, the three of which form the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy series. Square Enix explained that although all three games are thematically linked, they are not directly related in terms of story.

The developers for Final Fantasy XIII were divided into multiple areas, with each developer or team focusing only on a specific task such as developing a specific in-game area or modeling characters. Each physical area of the game was developed separately; after an initial design was approved, teams were assigned to a specific location and filled in details without reusing assets from other areas. Several of the game's developers had worked on previous installments of the series. Director Motomu Toriyama had worked on Final Fantasy X and X-2; producer Yoshinori Kitase had worked on V through VIII and as the producer for X and X-2; main-character designer Tetsuya Nomura had performed the same role for VII, VIII, X, and X-2, and battle-system director Toshiro Tsuchida reprised that role from Final Fantasy X. As XIII was the first Final Fantasy game for the PlayStation 3, the development team's internal goal was for the game to have the same "gameplay and craftmanship" impact that Final Fantasy VII and X had as the first games of the series on their respective consoles. They aimed to sell five million copies of the game. Toriyama wanted the game to be "the ultimate single player RPG" and for the game's plot to be "a dramatic story focused on the emotions of the characters."

Tsuchida's concept for the battle system was to maintain the strategic nature of command-based battles. The system stemmed from a desire to create battles similar to those found in the film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Magic points (MP), which had been a part of the battle system in previous Final Fantasy titles, were removed in the game's battle system as Tsuchida and the other designers felt that it gave players an incentive to not use their most powerful magic attacks due to the MP cost, in turn making battles less interesting. The Paradigm system was designed early in the battle system's development, with the intent of making battles rely on quickly changing strategies and feel fast-moving. Originally there were only five roles, but the Saboteur was later added as the designers felt that its abilities were missing from the game and did not fit with the other roles. Together with the maximum of three characters in a combat situation, the groupings of enemies were designed to force the player to switch Paradigms to keep them engaged in the battles.

Toriyama wanted Lightning to be a new type of female character with an athlete's body and a less feminine nature than some of the previous female characters of the series. His guideline to Nomura was to make her "strong and beautiful", and she was intended to be reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife. Fang was initially meant to be a male character, but the gender was changed to coincide with the updated character designs during the latter part of development. The game's villains were intended by Kitase to have "their own motivations and beliefs" and act realistically. The graphics capabilities of the PS3 and Xbox 360 compared to previous consoles allowed Nomura to use more complex elements in the character designs than before, such as Lightning's cape and detailed facial features. This in turn meant that the art team had to do much more work for each character or area than in previous games. Nomura did not take an involved role in the creation of the non-playable characters.

Unlike previous games in the series which were more inspired by Asian locations and culture, Final Fantasy XIII was intended by the art team to be reminiscent of the United States. Pulse was based on landscape photographs the team took from across the country, and Cocoon was intended to be a "melting pot" of different ethnicities. Art director Isamu Kamikokuryo revealed that many additional scenarios such as Lightning's home, which were functioning in an unreleased build during development, were left out of the final version due to concerns about the game's length and volume. Kamikokuryo said the content they cut was, in itself, enough to make another game. According to Toriyama, the cuts were made in "various stages of development", and that some of the content was removed just before the game's completion. The game, unlike previous titles in the series, includes no explorable town areas; Toriyama said in an interview that the team was unable to make them as graphically appealing as the rest of the game and chose to eliminate them. Toriyama intended to have a piece of downloadable content available for the game that would include a new area, weapons and quests, but was forced to cut it as well due to quality concerns so late in the project and difficulties with the different systems for extra content on the two gaming consoles.

A playable demo of Final Fantasy XIII was included in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete, released on April 16, 2009. Toriyama stated that the release of the demo, which was not in the original development schedule, helped the team recognize a shared vision for what the game should look and feel like, a problem which had been plaguing the development team up until then. It helped the team prioritize the work that still needed to be done, which increased the development speed for the remainder of the project. The game was intended to appeal to both Western and Japanese audiences, and focus groups from both regions were used. The English localization began while development was still in progress to lessen the delay between the Japanese and worldwide releases. The game was initially going to be released solely for the PlayStation 3, but an Xbox 360 version was announced late in the game's development cycle. The Xbox version, due to technical limitations, runs at a lower resolution (720p maximum) than the PlayStation version and is spread across 3 discs.