When Final Fantasy XV was debuted announced last year at E3 2013, a lot of people expected that the game formerly known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII would be renamed as such and its story expanded to have a self-contained Final Fantasy experience. At this year’s TGS, we finally get to see the game and hear some news about its development as well.

No longer is long time Final Fantasy collaborator Tetsuya Nomura helming the project. Instead, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core and Final Fantasy Type-0 director Hajime Tabata – a name that you’ll soon be very familiar with – will be helming the whole project towards its completion. Nomura will be moving on to direct Kingdom Hearts III full time.

“In reviewing our development structure, we have decided to assign Hajime Tabata as the new director for FINAL FANTASY XV. Currently, Tabata and the entire development team are working, whole-heartedly, towards completing the production of FINAL FANTASY XV and ensuring the delivery of the highest quality FINAL FANTASY title to date,” said Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda in a press release. “We invite every one of our fans to view the fruits of our labor through FINAL FANTASY XV’s demo, and promise to present a game that further surpasses expectations when the finished product is released.”

“As the director of FINAL FANTASY XV, Tetsuya Nomura has mainly worked on the original concept for the story and universe in addition to creating the characters. Hereafter, he will be focusing his efforts on the production of titles that can only be made possible by Nomura, himself, and delivering products that exceed the quality of past titles, starting with another one of his representative projects, KINGDOM HEARTS III. Square Enix will continue to work on these titles with the best staff formation in an effort to deliver them to everyone as soon as possible and appreciates your continued support.”

A demo of Final Fantasy XV called Final Fantasy XV -Episode Duscae- will be included with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. Fitting, given that Tabata also worked on that game as well! Final Fantasy XV will be coming out on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Personally I’m very excited by the trailer. We haven’t heard much about the gameplay, but it seems to evoke a lot of the things they’ve learned from Final Fantasies XI, XII, and XIV, with some inspiration from Xenoblade Chronicles thrown in for good measure. What are your thoughts on this new entry to the series?