Final Fantasy XIII-2 duo Yoshinori Kitase and Motomu Toriyama have dropped a ton of new info on the game in a new interview, confirming that multiple endings will feature for the first time in the Final Fantasy series.
Specifics on how they would work weren’t given, but a lot more details will be announced at TGS in September.
“There isn’t an awful lot I can tell you on this subject, but we have changed that structure, because obviously people didn’t like it—there is a new one,” Toriyama told RPGSite when asked about using a chapter-based system for XIII-2. “For details on that, we’ll have to wait until TGS, but one thing I can tell you is that for the first time in the Final Fantasy series, XIII-2 will have multiple endings.”
Toriyama added that it had been inspired by Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption in making FFXIII-2, saying there would be side missions in the RPG, “a bit like in Red Dead Redemption.”
“Among the millions of games that came out last year, Red Dead Redemption was adored by a lot of Japanese developers, including ourselves,” he continued.
“Our game is not as open-field as that game, obviously. We did take some inspirations, however. For example, missions can happen anywhere rather than having to go to a certain shrine, or base or something, and that’s from them. In this game you see lots and lots of chocobos and you can ride them. The kind of feeling you get as you ride the chocobo, it’s a bit like the way you ride a horse.
“It’s a really refreshing feel good experience, and that’s one thing we learned from the game.”
Despite being lambasted for having a lack of traditional towns to explore in XIII – a previous interview mentioned development on them was “very hard” – Toriyama added that development on towns from PS1 era games, such as FFVII-IX, would be “quite boring.”
Final Fantasy XIII-2 launches early next year for PS3 and 360.