Square Enix Attempting to Get Full Final Fantasy XV to Nintendo Switch

Every third-party developer seems to be interested in developing for the Nintendo Switch these days and Square Enix is no exception. In fact, according to Eurogamer (link), Square Enix is hard at work trying to get the full Final Fantasy XV experience onto the Nintendo Switch.

Talking to Final Fantasy XV director, Hajime Tabata, Tabata told Eurogamer that they were doing some technical investigations on whether it is possible to bring the full Final Fantasy XV experience to the Switch.

“We’re actually doing very specific technical investigations into what’s possible at the moment,” Tabata told us at Square Enix’s Shinjuku offices ahead of this week’s Tokyo Game Show. “Where we are at the moment – we’ve completed those tests and have worked out where the ground lies. We’re currently in the middle of the discussion and debate about what we should be doing, and how to realise that on the Switch.

At the same time, the team is also looking hard for ways to optimise the gameplay on the Nintendo Switch, going to the extent of starting discussions with Nintendo on how best to do it.

“The other thing – you see the mobile version, the PC version, one thing we value is to optimise the way the game plays and the experience for the individual hardware it’s on rather than a one-size fits all approach. We can’t currently announce anything – we haven’t come to a full decision on the best way to do it yet. We’re having very open, frank discussions with Nintendo at the moment about what they think is the best thing to do. It’s all under investigation.”

Despite so, initial results were not optimistic. There is a lot of work to do before Final Fantasy XV is possible for the Nintendo Switch.

“Honestly, when we did the technical test to see if we could use the same native engine we used on other console versions on the Switch, we tried to run it there, the results weren’t satisfactory,” said Tabata. “It wasn’t what you’d want from a final game. It doesn’t mean that’s the end of that – we’re looking at the options, like the customisation of the engine. To give you an example how open those discussions are – we’re talking to Epic at the moment, about maybe what we could possibly do there, and if we did a Switch version maybe we’d be able to partner and do something there. Their Unreal environment is just amazing, and will be very useful. You have to have all those options on the table – without that it’d be impossible to make a decision about what we can do on that platform.”

As Square Enix continues investigating the possibility of bringing Final Fantasy XV for the Nintendo Switch, they currently have nothing to announce on the game coming to the Nintendo Switch. If you are interested, you can read Eurogamer’s full article here.