The announcement was made over on Final Fantasy 15’s official forums, and it’s definitely good news for fans and designers alike, especially after the title has been delayed on numerous occasions since its announcement for PS4 and Xbox One over two years ago. Interestingly enough, Kitade expressed that the game almost feels like its development has been finished entirely, writing:

Although Final Fantasy 15’s development team now has a fuller understanding of the remaining efforts that need to be done in order to put the game over the top in terms of visuals and gameplay mechanics, there is, however, plenty of work left to do. Not to mention, with game development typically being a very difficult and arduous process, there’s still the potential for creators to come across some unforeseen circumstances when determining how to properly pace the title itself outside of quality assurance testing.

“The first half of the game is finished with the quality of a final product, and you get the sense you’re playing it in its final form.”

With developers at Square Enix now exiting the pre-beta phase for Final Fantasy 15, the game’s simultaneous worldwide release could conceivably take place at the tail-end of 2016, or perhaps even sometime in 2017. While some may deem such a projection to be far too long of a wait for the game, particularly when taking into consideration all of the holdups it’s encountered so far, it would be better for everyone if creators take their time to ensure that the final product is as pristine as possible.

Today’s news should only intensify the excitement for Hajime Tabata, director of Final Fantasy 15, to finally make the game’s official release date known this coming March. At this point, the simple aspect of finding out exactly when the long-awaited title drops will likely be met with celebration, for after it was announced that it was skipping this year’s E3 press conference, many folks speculated that its production had become troubled.

In the meantime, players also have a second demo to look forward to, as developers are intent on building upon the project’s assets that were presented in Episode Duscae’s playable sample back in June. Bearing all of this in mind, it seems as Final Fantasy 15 is well within our grasp.

Final Fantasy 15 is set for release sometime in 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Source: Final Fantasy XV (via Gematsu, VG 24/7)