Final Fantasy XV didn’t just have a troubled development; it was built on a foundation that would never work. Square Enix created Crystal Tools for Final Fantasy XIII, a highly linear game… and then tried to use that same technology to build an open-world project in Versus XIII. What followed was nearly a decade of delays, engine rewrites, and constant restructuring, until the original vision collapsed into something else entirely.

In this episode, we break down how management decisions, engine limitations, and shifting priorities turned one of the most anticipated Final Fantasy games into one of its most infamous development cycles.