There's great expectations building around on Final Fantasy XV. The game - which has been in development for almost a decade now - is proving more interesting and increasingly surprising with each new announcement. With that in mind, over on the official forums the developers have shared some very interesting information, unveiling two new battle modes, plus new details about the city of Altissia.
">Talking about the City of Altissia, the planner Tomonori Ishikawa revealed how it is structured:
"I can tell everyone a little about Altissia at this time.
Altissia has many and varied locations, such as multiple cafes, ship-bourne market places and parks etc. The city is of a considerable scale, to the extent that even the developers sometimes get lost there!
The player is free to take a leisurely walk around the complex maze of streets, or ride the gondola to see the sights and there is also added enjoyment to be had looking for restaurants to visit!
You are bound to encounter some unique characters when exploring the city streets."
Writing about the two battle modes, Lead Game Designer Masashi Takizawa announced that one is mainly focused on those who are action-oriented, while the other is designed for those who prefer a more relaxed style of combat:
"The equivalent to difficulty level settings in FFXV is a system where you can switch between different battle modes. By having this ability to switch modes, we want to make it so that both players who like action oriented, technical gameplay and also those who want to fight at a slower, more relaxed pace can all enjoy the combat in their own style. This switching system is a key part of the gameplay that we decided to introduce based on the feedback we received from the Episode Duscae demo. We will go into more detail about the system closer to the game's launch so stay tuned for more information."
Finally, Lead Level Designer Takefumi Terada has written about the possibility and the presence of more multiple warp points in large buildings, also hinting at the presence of aerial battles:
"The warp ability that lets you teleport instantly to high up locations is a vital part of FFXV's battle system. The ability to use multiple warp points in a strategic manner is especially prevalent in the game's large scale battles over urban terrain. It is not just the buildings though, and we have also created exciting aerial battles with flying foes and gigantic boss enemies, so watch out for those."
At the moment it is still unclear when the game will be released, but according to some recent rumours, it seems very likely that Square Enix will publish it sometime this summer.