Final Fantasy XV Will Probably Release Next Year

After a very long development cycle, it seems like gamers will finally get to play Final Fantasy XV.

The game, originally developed under the title Final Fantasy Versus XII first saw the light of day when Square Enix showed it off at E3 in 2006.

But don't worry Final Fantasy fans, Director Hajime Tabata gave a prospective release window for the game that's not terribly far away.

He confirmed with Gamespot that it will come in 2016.

"I understand why people are feeling that way after coming to Cologne and speaking to a lot of the media," he said. "We really do get the feeling that people are a bit worried. Certainly, one thing I would like to say to them to reassure them, is that we've set down the release date, we know when it is, and we've got a complete road map lined up, right up to launch, and we're proceeding along that as planned."

Then, Tabata dropped the best indication of the Final Fantasy XV release date yet: "We can certainly say to people: it's not going to be 2017. It's going to be before that."

As Tabata said, not a lot of other announcement have come out of Gamescom 2015 about the game. However, we did learn a lot about the backstory that drives the game (and the backstory of the dude who drives the car).