When Square Enix finally brought Final Fantasy 15 to PC earlier this year, it was one of their most ambitious PC efforts, at least for their Japanese side. Nothing exemplified this as well as the modding tools and support for the game that Square officially brought to the table for the PC version of the game as well.
Speaking to GameSpot, Square Enix live services manager Shigefumi Tanaka explained why the publisher, unlike so many Japanese publishers that still have a sealed end product mentality regarding their games, is finally coming on board with supporting mods for PC versions of its games.
“We’re doing the mods […] to give some kind of connection with players around the world,” he said. “Even though it’s not a multiplayer experience, it still gives the feeling of you being involved in something bigger, and just that two-way approach in terms of providing more story content but also just providing things on a more day-to-day level for people to just enjoy and create their own customized experience is how we’re looking at the remainder on this XV timeline.
“The level editor is going to give the players ability to create little events on their own. […] Just the fact that we’re gonna be letting players choose their way of enjoying the game [through custom content] is something that we’re looking forward to seeing. For us, we just want to provide the platform for players to take advantage of all the mod tools that are gonna be released from us, and then have them just go wild with it, have fun and, just really enjoy their own experiences.”
It’s great just how good the PC version of Final Fantasy 15 ended up turning out- Square has usually put out subpar versions of its games for PC, and Final Fantasy 15 was a welcome relief from the norm. Hopefully, going forward, the PC version of Final Fantasy 15 is the new normal for Square, and for the rest of the Japanese gaming industry.
