Final Fantasy XIII universe will continue after Lightning Returns, says SE

Remember back when Square Enix announced Final Fantasy XIII? They announced that this particular universe, which they call Fabula Nova Crystallis, would have three games, all connected together. Those three games were FFXIII itself, Final Fantasy Agito XIII for the PSP and Final Fantasy Versus XIII exclusively for the PS3.

FF13 came out in 2010, then went on to spawn a sequel, Final Fantasy XIII-2 last year. Another sequel in the 13 trilogy is coming out this year, called Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

Agito saw a huge makeover, and it became Final Fantasy Type-0. It was released in Japan, had extremely high sales, got great praise from critics, but hasn’t been released in the West despite the fans begging SE to localize it.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII? Well, it’s more or less vapourware. It has been in development forever, and we have no idea when it’ll come out. SE says it is not vapourware, but we’ll believe it when we see it.

Anyway, Square Enix’s veteran Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase says that while Lightning Returns would be the end of the storyline involving Gran Pulse, Cocoon and Lighting- a storyline that began in FF13 and continued in 13-2- it certainly won’t be the end of the Final Fantasy XIII universe.

“When you say this universe, if you’re talking about the universe that we have been seeing in XIII, XIII-2 and this game, that includes Cocoon, Gran Pulse and the islands in this instalment- that is definitely coming to an end,” Kitase told IGN. “But if you’re on about Fabula Nova Crystallis and the mythology that these stories are based on, that may continue.”

Well, seeing as we still haven’t seen the Western release of Type-0 and any release of Versus 13, I’d say it was pretty obvious that the universe would continue. However, Type-0 seems like a game that probably won’t ever get released outside of Japan- the PSP is no more an active system. Maybe we could see it as a digital release for the Vita. And if Square don’t hurry up, the PS3 will have reached the end of its life, and it may be too late for Versus too.

However, if Kitase is talking about completely new Fabula Nova Crystallis games altogether, that would be pretty interesting.

What do you guys think? Tell us in your comments below.