Tabata says what interests him most now is the idea of taking his games beyond the confines of consoles and computers. “We want to take Final Fantasy 15 outside the screen,” he says. “We want to liberate the game from the confines of the screen and try to somehow make it playable inside the real world, if that makes sense.” While that might suggest an augmented reality an experience along the lines of Pokémon Go, Tabata says that’s not the case, even if he thinks highly of Niantic and Nintendo’s creation. “One thing I’ve learned from Pokémon Go is that it’s so simple, yet it shows what a simple game can do — all that buzz, all those users. I tried it myself because of this fever!”
But if 15’s next evolution isn’t an AR-based experience, what precisely does Tabata have in mind? He won’t say precisely, but he is willing to offer some hints. Surprisingly, those hints point in the exact opposite direction of his avowed love of cutting-edge tech.
“We have physical collaborations with Square Enix Café where the whole café becomes decorated with Final Fantasy 15 paraphernalia and goods and figures and stuff,” he muses, “but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s more like: how can you enjoy the game in real world, not on the screen? That’s the direction I’m thinking.
“I personally have an interest in what’s called live-action role-playing. When you see the general user base of live-action RPGs increasing, it’s kind of exciting. There’s a lot of settings with these as well, not just fantasy but all these other themes. So there’s a lot of room for exploration there, I think. I’ve never heard of anyone playing a live-action RPG version of Final Fantasy 15, so maybe that’s a cause for concern. Or the entire Final Fantasy franchise, for that matter.”
