A week after releasing Final Fantasy XV worldwide, Square Enix has announced plans to revamp the game by releasing free DLC that will alter gameplay systems, add in new narrative elements (like voiced cutscenes) and potentially update the game with new playable characters or modes.
The scope of these proposed changes — laid out today in a company blog post attributed to game director Hajime Tabata — is significant because they suggest Final Fantasy XV will be a notably different game a year from now, potentially frustrating people who bought the game upon release and have already played through it.
While fellow devs can probably appreciate the team’s apparent desire to improve the game, these plans also revive the long-running question of how much post-launch tinkering is appropriate in game development. The fact that these proposed FFXV changes will be free does, at least, slide the devs out of the “DLC scam” firing line.
You can get a better sense of what Square Enix is hoping to change about Final Fantasy XV (albeit with no hard details of when) in Tabata’s full blog post.