Sorry to necro this thread but what one Earth happened? Recently finished the game and I thought it was disjointed mess. Even if they took another few years or integrate the content and pad out the storytelling and pacing, this could've been a far superior game (though it wouldn't fix the combat). I really enjoyed FFXIII, but when it comes to XV, it has few redeeming qualities other than its blockbuster production values (though like the rest of the game its disjointed). If Nomura's team, had 2 full years and then Tabata's had another 3.5, how could they release it in such a state? Who even created all this cut content in the first place?
The XV game we got shipped on a disc didn't have a 10 year dev cycle like some claim, although the project itself was cooking for 10 years in its entirety. I followed the project very closely with anitcipation from the first announcement and I think the dev history was something like this.
From the Versus announcement in 2006-2009, essentially just CGI and test development trying to see how they could pull off the vision (world map, cars, airships, city's etc on PS3) and this was largely done by a skeleton crew with the bulk of staff working on FFXIII and FFXIV.
2010-2011, pre-production shifted to small scale production and a small vertical slice of the final game and some gameplay was whipped together. But rebuilding FFXIV was still using up a ton of internal resources to give this the attention it needed for a timely release.
2012, internal wrangle over whether it should be cross-gen or next gen only and become a numbered entry. At some point this year the cross-gen plan was scrapped and they agreed to make it a numbered title and I think work on the Luminous engine properly began this year.
2013, they start fresh, PS4 gen only, Nomura asked for multi-part, similar to FFVIIR, but I believe a 2 part saga. Concept was formed which were the 2 E3 2013 trailers that excited fans who followed the project since 2006. The engine was far from complete and needed to be worked on alongside the actual games development.
All of the above covered here:
2013 - early 2014, head honcho's top down insisted on it being a one and done game, probably because of how the FFXIII sequels were recieved. I assume Nomura said this wasn't feasible with the concept and plot outline for the project. So then they replaced him with Tabata who was more of a project planner business type than an artist who'd anguish over the fine details like Nomura to get shit done. A lot of the old guard were moved over to FFVIIR, FFXIV, KH3 etc... Tabata brought in a new team of fresh recruits, gutted the project and simplified it to release in one game which emphasised the open world over distincly unique locales FF is known for. Hence why so many locations feel hollow and incomplete, whilst the open world aspect is kind of competent and made to a decent standard.
2014, work on Luminous continued but I assume was largely done, Stella cut for Luna plus many other changes, the Insomnia prologue cut and all of this reworked to be reused in the CGI movie, anime etc... I presume this is when development really swang into full production and for the new project vision and XV works we got. TGS trailer released which represented the new focus of the game.
2015, The Episode Duscae demo released in spring. I recall reception was largely positive for this vertical slice, but even at this stage the sweeping changes to game as the cut prologue, no character switching and aim to release the backstory to the game in other forms wasn't known to fans. Towards the end of this year fans were getting quite impatient not knowing a release year or release date and I think this is when it was insisted by the big wigs that is ships by the end of 2016.
2016, the CGI movie, anime and release date was announced at a big event for the game in Spring for September 30th. This was later pushed back to November 30th. This is when the 2nd open world was probably scrapped as they couldn't finish it in time. The game shipped and recieved mix reception which I recall leaned more negative than positive. So then they patched the hell out of it over the months ahead, added new gameplay features constantly, cutscenes and more.
So yeah the dev cycle for the game that shipped must have been about 2-3 years, which is quite nuts. They probably needed 4-5 years and in current industry I'm sure they'd have been afforded that (7R's and 16's dev cycle was about 5 years) but due to the overall project history some in the company were desperate to ship it and move on.
