Final Fantasy XV Was Reportedly Almost Developed By Eidos Montreal

Final Fantasy XV's development process was infamously long, especially when compared to other mainline entries in the series, and at one point it looked like development would be helmed by Western studio Eidos Montreal.

Speaking to TrueAchievements, former Eidos Montreal art director Jonathan Jacque-Belletete revealed that the studio had a "really cool" Final Fantasy game in development that would have been the 15th entry in the core series, but Final Fantasy Versus XIII was eventually changed to be the next chapter in the franchise.

"[Eidos Montreal] brought back Deus Ex. I was the art director on that--Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Then I was the executive art director on Mankind Divided. Then we tried to do Final Fantasy 15," Jacque-Belletete said. "Then Square Enix decided to bring FF15 back to Japan, which I think was a big mistake, but it's still the truth. Ours was really, really cool."

Final Fantasy XV was released in 2016, and as of this month, has sold over 10 million units worldwide across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.

Eidos Montreal would spend time working on more Deus Ex games, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and last year's well-received Guardians of the Galaxy. The studio would eventually be sold alongside Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group, which has big plans to make good use of all of the new IPs that it has just acquired. A

As for Square Enix's RPG franchise, Final Fantasy VII 25th anniversary news is coming next month according to the company and producer Naoki Yoshida said that he'd like to show the new trailer for Final Fantasy XVI soon.

For more on potential big announcements, you can check out GameSpot's guide on what to expect from Final Fantasy's 35th Anniversary.