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Of course, Square Enix was quite involved in press conferences yesterday, where Rise of the Tomb Raider got a fair bit of air time with live gameplay (Microsoft) and the announcement of a Final Fantasy 7 remake, as we've already reported, generated a whole lot of buzz (Sony). Today, however, Square Enix had their own dedicated press conference at E3, which brought some long-awaited news, some surprises, and some vague announcements. Here's our play-by-play recap.

Phil Rogers (CEO for the Americas / Europe) kicked things off on a serious note by reflecting on the company's new attitude, one which began with the A Realm Reborn and has been evident with the handling of Final Fantasy XV (which will not be heard from again until Gamescom, as we learned in the last Active Time Report). Square Enix, he said, is more committed to gamer feedback and satisfaction than ever before; he continued to insist that today's conference would prove that the company is "unique in the industry in terms of the variety and depth of the experiences we create."

Next up was a trailer for Just Cause 3. There wasn't much new to say: with a December 1 release, at this point it's just a waiting game. Blow stuff up. For liberty. And stuff.

Yosuke Saito (Business Division 6 Director) took the stage next for the surprise announcement of a new NieR game, as yet unnamed. A little bit of animation and a series of art pieces followed. In keeping with the world of the first NieR game, these alternated between luscious natural environments and the crumbling relics of an industrialized civilization gone before. Square Enix will be working with Platinum Games on the title; Yoko Taro will be directing. Taro appeared onstage with a mask resembling Emil, a character in the first NieR game. While the title is still very early in development, fans of the original will be happy to know that the sequel will have the same composer.

Rise of the Tomb Raider was up next, and though the game has already had some time in the spotlight at E3, director Brian Horton talked about the quality of Lara's character model, which accumulates scars, dirt, and snow over the course of gameplay. The game is due out November 10. After Horton, Patrick Naud (head of SE Montreal) introduced Lara Croft Go, a mobile title in the vein of the studio's Hitman Go. Naud promised the best elements of Tomb Raider distilled into a simple yet engaging game with, if I may add, a neat-looking art style.

Shinji Hashimoto (Kingdom Hearts series director) was next up, introducing.... the Final Fantasy 7 trailer shown last night. He stuck around to introduce..... Kingdom Hearts Unchained Key, a mobile title in development for Android and iOS. Just as the disappointment became palpable, Hashimoto introduced what fans had been hoping for: Kingdom Hearts 3. A trailer showcased gameplay and confirmed the appearance of elements from Disney's Tangled and the rock titan from Hercules. Aside from some dialogue reflecting on the legendary Keyblade War, there were no plot-related details.

This was followed by a replay of the trailer for World of Final Fantasy, which was also shown at Sony's event last night. The game's director, Hiroki Chiba, explained that his inspiration for this title was to create a game that would make Final Fantasy available to gamers of any age and any gender. We're pretty sure it is being developed specifically for CoNtoddler, but Square Enix was not available for comment. Expected 2016 release.

Hitman, the sixth installment in the series, was revealed at Sony's press conference yesterday. It got slightly expanded treatment today, with lots of emphasis on the openness of the game world and the myriad possibilities it allows for uniquely executing hits. Some hits, it was revealed, will only be available once for a brief window of time and never again, further raising the stakes of execution. Pun intended.

Next was Star Ocean Integrity and Faith, the fifth title in the Star Ocean series. After replaying the original announcement trailer, director Shuicki Kobayashi took the stage to show the title's first gameplay trailer. He emphasized seamless exploration to battle transition and said that, in an effort to respond to criticism of Star Ocean 4 being too cinematic, the game would employ a balance of "dynamic cutscenes" interwoven with gameplay in order to enable the same degree of storytelling without less interruption from more traditional "static cutscenes." Kobayashi stressed that the final project -- with an anticipated 2016 release on PS4 -- will run at twice the fps as today's trailer.

After this, we heard from David Anfossi and Mary DeMarle of Eidos Montreal on the highly anticipated Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Set in 2029, two years after Human Revolution, tensions between augmented and unaugmented humans have heightened even further, to the point of a "mechanical apartheid." As established in the game's announcement trailer back in April, Adam Jensen is returning as the game's protagonist. Today, however, we saw first gameplay trailer, featuring additional augmentations, upgradable weaponry, and some pretty graphics. Mankind Divided is anticipated for an early 2016 release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Finally, Yosuke Matsude (Square Enix President) gave a bit of air time to the already-announced Final Fantasy Portal App, available this summer, that will apparently provide news on the series. Much more mysteriously, he made one final announcement: an all-new RPG project from a new studio created specifically for the purpose, Tokyo RPG Factory. All there was to show were a few art pieces depicting a "delicate and wistful" atmosphere, the codename "Project Setsuna," and a projected 2016 release.

And with that, the 70-minute conference concluded. All in all, it is safe to say that 2016 is looking to be as busy a year for Square Enix as any.

Source: Square Enix Youtube Channel

I don't even get to watch E3 live this year, for the first time in at least five years. I'm on the road this week, but I had to pop in for this news: Final Fantasy VII, after all the non-starts, jokes, trolls, and general stupidity, Final Fantasy VII is being remade.

The details were announced at Sony's E3 presser tonight, and as such it was made clear that one could "play it first" on Playstation 4. That of course leads one to believe that other platforms will become available; both Windows and Xbox One would likely be no-brainers.

Some kindly soul has already ripped the trailer from the stream: enjoy.



Source: Kotaku

The newest Square Enix Active Time Report was early this morning, and it was blessedly subtitled in English. The bulk of the report was, naturally, Final Fantasy XV, but some other things popped in as well. As in the past, Hajime Tabata and Akio Ofuji presented for a bit over an hour.

A good portion of the discussion today was seeming aimed at explaining to us as gamers what it means that the game is now truly Final Fantasy XV and not Versus, and it came across with a mildly apologetic tone and lots of reconciliation along the lines of statements like, "we tried very hard to keep everything from Versus with as little modification as possible."

Basically, Square Enix have come to a point where the game has changed significantly from what was previously known about Versus while maintaining enough to reasonably keep the game under the Fabula Nova Crystallis umbrella. Some things that they specifically called out were the loss of the previous female lead, Stella, to be replaced with the new female lead, Luna - more on that in a second. Additionally, the timeline of the events that start the game have changed, with Insomnia (Noctis' city) coming under attack from Niflheim after Noctis has left on his journey, and not as the catalyst for so doing.

Back to the female factor, it was clear that Tabata wanted to express a reaction to the oft-joked-about male-heavy look of the media released up until now and within Episode Duscae. The time spent on discussing Luna, as well as an un-named "dark-haired woman" and a "female dragoon" was clearly meant to show that there is more gender balance in the final game, but no real details emerged today to back that up.

In terms of technology, the pair brought up the Luminous Engine that was debuted a couple years back in the tech demo known as Agni's Philosophy; it's relevant now because the newest version, Luminous Engine 1.5, is a part of Ebony, the overall Final Fantasy XV engine. As such, they showed a new video showing Luminous Engine at work in Episode Duscae - the video was originally intended as an industry demo and recruiting tool, so it did contain some visuals that have not been public until now as well as some interviews with Square Enix personnel discussing the benefits of having access to Luminous. The video focused on very impressive particle and lighting effects, especially with regards to lighting of semi-opaque textures like human skin and the finish of a car. It also discussed (and showed via the use of wireframe overlays) the ways in which environmental influences like landscape and battle impact change the way that creatures and humans move in the world, and how it should avoid things like clipping or unrealistic limb movements. There was also a brief view of a city, Lestallum, that will be in the Final Fantasy XV world but had not yet been publicly discussed.

Also debuting in this ATR was a new tech demo called WITCH Chapter 0 [cry]. Yes. That is its name, and it is amazing. It's a demo leveraging Microsoft's new DirectX 12, coming with Windows 10; it was certainly used as a reminder that Square Enix are jumping on that boat early. The demo did look like a step up even from what we are seeing in Final Fantasy XV in terms of graphical capability. Real-time rendering of a day's sunlight in time-lapse over cliffs was a standout feature, as well as the realistic movement of feathers and dangly jewelry on what one assumes is the witch of the title. Even more impressive, though, was the "cry" aforementioned - the subtle changes to the character's skin and eyes as tears welled up and dried looked exceptionally realistic.

A few more tidbits of data were scattered about; one was a day out of date, confirming the release of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD for Windows. Additionally came confirmation that there would be no further new XV information until Gamescom (skipping E3), and no further Active Time Reports until after Gamescom as well. Finally, the team announced that Episode Duscae 2.0 would be released on June 9 with new scenarios to play through and refinements to the combat system.

Tabata exclaimed at one point in the middle, "Trust us!" So, do you?

Source: Square Enix Youtube, Gamespot

Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy Agito, a free-to-play mobile RPG release last year in Japan, will be making its way to Windows X, er, 10 sometime later this year. The game is somewhat of a prologue to Final Fantasy Type-0. The player takes control of a student in a military academia in the same world as Type-0, some of whose characters will cross paths with the protagonist. A port of the game has also been in development for the Playstation Vita for at least a year.

Mobius Final Fantasy, until recently called "Mevius," is set to release in Japan on June 4th for Android and iOS devices. The free-to-play RPG, which we last reported on in March, features a plot that involves becoming the Warrior of Light. Against Chaos. In a world with which the protagonist has no familiarity, where a princess awaits the arrival of the prophesied Warrior, and where a knight named Garland and a fairy named Echo offer aid and advice along the way. Alright, while Square Enix doesn't appear to be pulling any muscles with the plot setup, the game does boast an expansive world map and a touchscreen-interactive battle system. Still no word on a Western release, but with the effort their putting into this one (see our previous newspost), I would expect an import.

Finally, Tomoya Asano, the director for the Bravely Default series, has released a few new comments on the future of the franchise. Ideas for a third title do exist, Asano said, but the development team is debating whether the next title should take the form of a sequel or something "completely new." That doesn't give us much to go by, but Asano did say somewhat reassuringly that, in addition to their interest in trying out some new things, the team is carefully considering fan feedback from previous releases. Asano reiterated that above all, the team is currently concerned with the Western version of Bravely Second.

Incidentally, this is the first time anyone connected with Bravely has spoken of a Western release. So with that, it looks like we will indeed be getting it!

Source: Siliconera, Siliconera, Siliconera

Type-0 owners: your voices have been heard! Well, okay, it's nothing to do with Type-0, but obviously some folks out there bought the game just for the demo of... okay, never mind, this never really clicked as a lede.

Seriously, though, there's a new version of Episode Duscae coming out in a few weeks. It looks to be an iterative update to the original, with tweaks based on feedback from the first release. There's no current update that describes any new content being added in, but it wouldn't be surprising to see some minor things pop in.

Keep an eye out on your own PS4 and let us know when you see it!

Source: Siliconera

Square Enix Japan recently announced a new IP called Rampage Land Rankers, a dungeon crawler/RPG for smartphones coming out next month. It's an amalgamation of a variety of artistic and gameplay styles, thrown into a big blender; for instance, the character design is being done by Tetsuya Nomura in a very steampunk-y style, but the in-game models look as if they're rendered in the style of Final Fantasy III and IV 3D. The battles, meanwhile, look like a blend between turn-based JRPG fighting and card battling, and the dungeons claim to be procedurally generated for a randomized experience for each run.

It also seems as if you will use different characters in each dungeon, up to ten through the course of any particular dungeon. Other characters will be summoned via the use of items, but it's not clear as if these characters can also participate in normal play.

The game will also have a co-op multiplayer of some stripe, as well as item trading with friends on other devices. Again, the game will be out in May 2015 for Android and iOS in Japan, with no other releases announced at this time.

Source: Siliconera