Square Enix celebrated the 30th anniversary of Final Fantasy with an event hosted in Japan today. Most of the main developers linked to the series were present to make a series of announcements related to the various FF titles out now or coming this year. The most important were the details on FF15 DLC and the release date for FF12: The Zodiac Age.
While rumors of compilation announcements and game reveals had been floating online for the past weeks, most of them didn’t materialize during the evening. However, that’s not to say we didn’t get some interesting news.
The event started with executive producer – and protagonist of those “please be excited” memes – Shinji Hashimoto taking the stage to thank the fans and welcoming composer Nobuo Uematsu and artwork designer Yoshitaka Amano. Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was sick with the flu, but he sent a video message.
Then Hashimoto revealed that they had 10 announcements to make during the evening, although not all would be game-related. Coupled with a special anniversary sale in most digital stores, the main gaming reveals included news on FF15 DLC, with Episode Gladio, in which we receive the assistance of Cor, coming on March 28th and Episode Promto coming in June. A booster pack including a new line of “invincible suits” was announced for February.
News on Final Fantasy 7 Remake were scarce, but at least we got a brand new visual (pictured above) featuring Cloud facing Sephiroth, with Midgar in the background.
A release date was finally given to Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age. This remastered version will launch on PlayStation 4 on July 11th in North America and Europe, and July 13th in Japan and the rest of Asia.
Moving onto mobile titles, Cloud from FF7 was unveiled as a guest character on FF Brave Exvius, and the team presented some new artwork by Amano and a new story campaign. A new upcoming mobile game, Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, will be released in the Japanese market tomorrow, February 1st. And finally, Sephiroth was announced to appear on Mobius Final Fantasy.
The last gaming revelation was the appearance of Noctis on Itadaki Street, a title heavily focused on the Japanese market that it’s very unlikely that will be released in the West.
More related to the main franchise, a series of music concerts were announced for Japan, such as a new Distant Worlds event, which will also come to the West, a FF15 Piano Concert and a Brass de Bravo concert.
Finally, some of the most singular reveals were a new clothing line inspired in the series, a collection of FF-themed ramen noodles and some special wine bottles, themed after summons like Ifrit and Shiva.
