News

As mentioned in CoN news earlier, Square-Enix's new partnership with Marvel is confirmed and will clearly be this huge, big-budgeted Juggernaut™ with multiple collaborative releases expected over the next several years. Marvel's stories and characters in a Square-Enix graphics engine? The possibilities are endless! What's not to love?

Well for one, this could potentially be responsible for a possible setback in the schedules of one or several big titles Square-Enix slated to release over the coming years. FF7 is already rumored to be pushed back, possibly into 2018. According to express.co.uk (source below), game director Tetsuya Nomura indicated that they have a full schedule for the year including a priority on Kingdom Hearts 3 over all else, and that the FF7 Remake delay is highly likely. While they did not explicitly state that the Marvel collaboration had any connection, more details (and hopefully the release date!) should be coming when the director attends the Monaco Anime Game International Conference (MAGIC) on February 18th.

If true, does this make you feel any less thrilled about the FF7 Remake? We know what happens when this company begins to delay games...!

Source: express.co.uk

And soon! On February 6, the game released in 2015 in Japan and 2016 elsewhere will be released on Steam. Mobius is a Final Fantasy game that, unlike most mobile titles from Square Enix, was developed for higher-end systems using Unity, which should make it a more interesting visual experience on desktops; this version of the game was released in Japan late last year, so one would assume that it will be a relatively trouble-free version for gamers to play. The game's director, Naoki Hamaguchi, told the English Square Enix blog that the game will support resolutions up to 4K and that many players will be able to expect framerates of 60 to 120 FPS, which would certainly be a departure from some PC games the company has released in the past.

Though the release over here is only a week away, the game does not appear available for pre-order in the Steam store currently, so it's not possible to confirm pricing at this time.

The release is timed for a global event in-game. Starting the next day, February 7, a tie-in to the Final Fantasy VII Remake will begin that will feature Cloud arriving in Mobius' world, Palamecia, to fight alongside the game's protagonist Wol in a yet-unannounced scenario. Hamaguchi explained that the assets used to build Cloud and any other Final Fantasy VII-related assets used in Mobius were drawn straight from the assets built for Final Fantasy VII Remake, so Mobius will be the first opportunity for most players to see any live glimpse of what could be coming in Final Fantasy VII's future.

Source: Siliconera, Square Enix Blog

Square Enix, through Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal (the folks you might know from, say, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex), just showed up in the world of Marvel. Yesterday, the company teased a reveal for today; right in line with the company's profile, that reveal showed up on Marvel's Twitter account this morning in the form of a fifty-one-second trailer. In it, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Cap all appear as wrecked versions of their accouterments, with a broken pair of Banner's glasses, Thor's hammer, a discarded arm from Stark's suit, and Rogers' vibranium shield, all in rubble.

The theme of the video is "#reassemble," which implies to me that the plot of whatever game this might be could slot in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe somewhere between last year's Captain America: Civil War and next year's Avengers: Infinity War, but to be honest, I'm a little behind on the MCU movies and given the fact that we have no idea where the game is in development, it could well take place after Infinity War but before the fourth scheduled Avengers movie, or even later. I mean, I'm no insider - maybe it's not MCU at all, but frankly they'd be crazy not to figure it in there somehow.

That's all we know right now, but that's one heck of a teaser - one of the largest game developers in the world working (in theory) with what is probably the hottest global IP in entertainment right now. Pretty wild stuff, speculate away.

Source: Marvel Entertainment Twitter

The last time I had an update on the A New World concert series was ten whole months ago, but today Square Enix announced five new dates for the new year. Three of the shows are new to the series this year.

• Kansas City, Kansas: March 11
• Seattle, Washington: March 25
• Rosemont (Chicago), Illinois: May 21
• Atlanta, Georgia: May 28
• Portland, Oregon: June 3

The new dates will be in Seattle, Atlanta, and Portland, and the concerts will take place in conjunction with local conventions in Kansas City, Rosemont, and Atlanta. Benyamin Nuss is listed as the featured pianist for all but the KCK show, and Eric Roth (Arnie Roth's son) will conduct all five.

Apologies for being so far behind on news again - I've been swallowed up with other projects for most of January so far. I hear that Square Enix have a big announcement planned for tomorrow, though, so I'll be on the lookout for that!

Source: A New World

I must have missed an email earlier today, because I found out via a sponsored post on Facebook that Distant Worlds is coming to my area again, for their first ever show in New Orleans. I've already secured my tickets, so now my daughter will get her first-ever taste of Distant Worlds too!

There are quite a few new shows that have been announced since I last posted about Distant Worlds - here's your list.

• Newark, New Jersey: January 28
• Omaha, Nebraska: February 3
• Montreal, Quebec: February 11
• Seattle, Washington: March 26
• New Orleans, Louisiana: March 31
• Madrid, Spain: April 29
• Barcelona, Spain: April 30
• Amsterdam, Netherlands: May 4
• Dusseldorf, Germany: May 6
• Milan, Italy: May 12
• Zurich, Switzerland: May 13
• Edmonton, Alberta: May 20
• Calgary, Alberta: May 21
• Salt Lake City, Utah: June 3

New Orleans, all of the European dates, both Canadian dates, and Salt Lake City are all new locations never before visited by the Distant Worlds tours. However, Nobuo Uematsu fans will be disappointed by the dates announced so far this year, as he is currently confirmed to attend only Newark.

Is anyone getting a chance to go now thanks to a closer venue? I just commented recently that I was surprised that they'd never come to NOLA before, and I'm glad to have a chance to be there for the local debut!

Source: Distant Worlds

2017 is the 30th anniversary of the release of Final Fantasy in Japan (remember, we didn't get it over here for three more years). While the actual release in Japan didn't take place until December of 1987, for obvious reasons Square Enix are looking to make the entire year a celebration.

We've yet to get any new details regarding exactly what that will entail since that prior news post back in September, but the company has announced that there will be a live event in Tokyo on January 31st that will lay out the timeline for the year. There's been no announcment regarding a livestream for fans not lucky enough to win a ticket to the event, but I would be shocked to find that it is not streamed on Twitch, YouTube, NicoNico, or all three.

There have been rumors about remasters or remakes for every game in the series, but as yet those have been unconfirmed by any reliable source. Perhaps that might await us in a month's time.

Source: Siliconera