Final Fantasy 15: "The End Is In Sight"

Long-in-development console game Final Fantasy XV--which was first announced in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XII--finally is approaching the finish line. The game's director, Hajime Tabata, says in a new interview that while the game may only be 60 percent finished, "the end is in sight."

Last September, Tabata revealed that Final Fantasy XV was about 55 percent complete. Adding an additional 5 percent might not seem like much progress for five months of work, but there is more to consider, the veteran Square Enix developer told IGN.

"People may look at that and say 'well, you've only done five more percent!' but it's actually a lot more complicated than that," he said.

This is because, Tabata said, he anticipates that his team will be able to develop the project "much faster" than before now that development on the demo is wrapping up. In addition, he explains that the 60 percent number is actually somewhat conservative.

"In some ways I'm being very conservative in my estimates there and not wanting to put out too big a number," he said. "Developing big games on a large scale like this... it's not very even in terms of each area of the game being created, so you have uneven development processes where some things are nearly done, and others are still at prototype stage."

Tabata explained that building the Final Fantasy XV demo was one of the reasons why it took Square Enix so long to make noticeable progress on the full project. However, now that the demo is finished and ready to arrive in March, Tabata said he anticipates development on the final game will speed up.

"Because of the way development works, now we've seen a solid milestone, and using that it means the end is in sight in some ways," he said. "After that's released and we continue on with development there may be times where we move on with massive leaps and bounds, so the overall number shoots up by 10 percent at a time. I think we're looking at a much faster development in the near future."

Last week, Square Enix released a ton of new Final Fantasy XV gameplay details, along with a 40-minute video demo.

The upcoming Final Fantasy XV demo will be available March 17 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but only for people who buy Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. "We're never going to release it as a standalone piece down the line," Square Enix product marketing manager Scott Strichart explained in December.

Square Enix has not yet announced a release date for Final Fantasy XV.