New Information About Final Fantasy Versus XIII On The Horizon

Reaching up to the development gods, Final Fantasy Versus XIII has been striving to outlast the delays of both Duke Nukem Forever and The Last Guardian. Director Tetsuya Nomura, still as tight-lipped as ever, has re-emerged to give fans hope again.

Nomura recently appeared on Square Enix's Merchandise radio/podcast, mdRadio, and was more willing to speak about the project for the first time since its announcement.

“We’ve been quiet for a year now, but the date is already set for our next reveal and we are steadily working toward preparing information for that. Last year we failed to announce anything about the game – to be honest I talked about sharing new information but wasn’t able to and I want to apologize for that.”  - Nomura comments.

“Perhaps the details as to why information couldn’t be released might be touched upon with the next information announcement.”

Ooh? Could it be as simple as revealing that they have been waiting for the PS4/Xbox One to be officially announced, or perhaps it is something a little more complicated.

Earlier in the year, there was a Japanese fashion clothing label, Roen, working on the project who allegedly listed their work project as 'Final Fantasy XV'. Information on the designer's website shows that this error was made as far back as Summer of 2012.

Since that information was brought to light, Roen issued a statement on their website, claiming the text was an error and has now been changed to 'Final Fantasy Versus XIII (tentative)'.

I haven't even gotten to my favorite part:

A Final Fantasy fan with a quick eye grabbed a tweet from Nomura before it was taken down.

'“if u love noct now wait til u see her @E3 this year #FinalFantasyVersusXIII”.

To add a small note of my own, as a Japanese language student, it's not particularly common to use pronouns in Japanese language. To use them in English would require a Japanese speaker to, in a manner, go out of their way to distinguish gender. It rings odd to me. (Please note that this is pure speculation on my part. I don't know what Nomura's level of English is, without an official statement none of this is concrete.)

Another possibility points to Japan's personal imperial rules. Just within the past few years, Japan considered overturning the law requiring men as leaders, to the possibility of Empresses taking the throne alone. However, the recent birth of a baby boy in the royal family being able to take the throne quieted the idea of a new law. Perhaps this is some inspiration to Nomura and his staff?

An additional guess looks towards the long production time of the project. Final Fantasy XIII's female protagonist, Lightning, sold very well in Japan. This also isn't the first time there's been a gender-swap surprise in the Final Fantasy series.

With E3 in approximately two weeks, and Shinji Hashimoto, Square Enix's brand manager who has been involved with Chrono Trigger, Kingdom Hearts, and a handful of Final Fantasy titles, has given confirmation:

"[We are] preparing for development of a Final Fantasy title. Please be excited for E3 this year [2013]."

So what do you think. Will any upcoming project be Versus XIII at all? Was the tweet purposefully misleading? Will they flake out and nothing Final Fantasy will be shown? Let us know in the comments below.