The saga of Final Fantasy 15 on the Nintendo Switch has been the most confusing PR mess we’ve seen in a while. Every few days, we get someone at Square Enix – usually Hajime Tabata, who directed the game – hint at it coming to the Switch, before we get a statement that it’s not coming for now, after all.
So, today, we have one of the latter- we have a statement from Hajime Tabata that any indications about the game coming to the Switch is miscommunication, and for now, there are no plans to bring it over to Nintendo’s hybrid. “It’s gotten very confusing. We shouldn’t cause trouble with other companies, but I am going to say this bluntly,” Tabata began, in an interview with Famitsu (translated byReddit user xXRaineXx). “We have no plans at this current time to release FF15 on the Switch.”
He continued, however, noting that the company continues its experiments with Nintendo’s hardware. “Nevertheless, the Switch is hardware that we love as well. We are however testing to see what can be made and the technology at this time. Currently we are using an engine that we have created and we are considering whether we should continue to optimize the engine for the hardware or if it’s better to use Epic’s Unreal Engine. In this situation Nintendo and Epic are both sharing the weight. …and somehow, saying this to the world, for some reason people assumed we were making a Switch version. I won’t deny the possibility of the future, but really we really honestly don’t have any plans,” he ended.
I completely believe him- I have no reason not to take him on his word. But he can’t blame people for assuming a Switch version is coming, because so far, very honestly, Square Enix has not exactly been clear or convincing regarding its communication for a possible Switch port of the game.
Whether or not it ends up coming to the Switch, however, for now, you can still play the game on PS4 and Xbox One (with PS4 Pro and Xbox One X enhancements), as well as a PC edition coming next year, and even an adaptation of the game for iOS, Android, and Windows mobiles.