Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIII broke tradition in many ways, discarding conventions and challenging previous definitions of the role-playing game genre. But where did it go wrong?
On Thursday, Gamasutra shared a developers' postmortem from the October 2010 issue of Game Developer magazine. Square Enix executives Motomu Toriyama and Akihiko Maeda penned the article, which details some of the miscommunication that occurred within the Final Fantasy XIII development team.
One example lies in the game's conceptual trailer, which was introduced at E3 2006. Toriyama and Maeda hoped the trailer would capture the vision of Final Fantasy XIII for the rest of the team, but not everyone was on board.
"There were actually very few members [of the development team] who saw the trailer as a representation of what we wanted to achieve with Final Fantasy XIII," the article says. "This lack of a shared vision became the root of many conflicts that arose later in development."
The game's vision remained muddled until Square Enix produced a demo, which was included in the Japanese Blu-ray version of spin-off animated movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. That demo helped unify the development team, offering a tangible representation of how the game would ultimately feel.
"Even at a late stage of development, we did not agree on key elements of the game, which stemmed from the lack of a cohesive vision, the lack of finalized specs, and the remaining problems with communication between departments," the article says. "Many team members noted that the demo was what finally allowed them to truly realize and embrace the vision for Final Fantasy XIII."
News of a troubled development process isn't too surprising for a game that Wired.com editor Chris Kohler called a "failed experiment." Maybe they needed a fal'Cie to help give them some focus.
See Also:
