Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
A new trailer dropped recently for the next game in the Final Fantasy franchise, and it's a bit of a departure, to say the least. While the first teasers we saw for Final Fantasy XV featured handsome men with impractical hair speeding around in an even more handsome and impractical car, this new trailer focuses on the game's wildlife. It's shot in a manner that perfectly evokes nature documentaries, but without any narration it manages to be even more laid-back.
It also does make me wonder more about what Final Fantasy XV will actually be. Sure, it's still a Final Fantasy game and a lot of these animals aren't new within the series, but many are being shown in contexts that the series typically hasn't shown them in before. Just, you know, quietly existing. Unaffected by whatever our heroes are doing, wherever they're doing it. No one's running around attacking them to grind experience points. No one's raising, riding, or even racing that Chocobo.
So what does this trailer say about what the game's world will actually be like? Is it just window-dressing to show off their assets, or is it yet another nod to the influence and success of massive, open worlds like Skyrim. I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but either way this trailer is a wonderful little bit of virtual cinematography.
Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.
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