Final Fantasy XV Won’t Let You Change Characters In Battle

This morning, Square Enix held a special livestream to talk more about Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy XV, and share some information that they didn’t have enough time to address during Tokyo Game Show. [Update: Archived recording added above.]

First off, Final Fantasy XV’s new director, Hajime Tabata, has confirmed once and for all that the game won’t feature a character-switching system, so you’ll be restricted to playing as Noctis in combat.

It was also mentioned that the PlayStation Store information for Final Fantasy XV that was derived from last year’s Tokyo Game Show said that the battle system would let you enjoy switching between characters. Tabata apologized on behalf of Square Enix for the error.

While Square Enix decided not to include character-switching due to complications, they said that they’d rather focus on the one-character design, and are working on making something unique with the battle system they have for Final Fantasy XV.

When asked if Final Fantasy XV will play more like Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy Type-0, Square said that in its early stages, it was more like Kingdom Hearts, following which certain features brought it closer to Final Fantasy Type-0. Now, it feels more like its own thing.

You might remember seeing Noctis in the earlier trailers of the game (back when it was Versus XIII), where he was shown using an ability with multiple swords rotating around him. In combat footage shown during the stream, that ability was shown once again, and Noctis was using it to launch sword attacks against enemies while running around. This feature is still in its early stages.