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For a series with so many mainline entries, you’d think making a whole new numbered subseries would be unnecessary. Yet in the case ofFinal Fantasy, nothing is strictly expected, and everything is far from Final. This leads us to Final Fantasy Versus 13, the game that never was.
Despite being a game that was never released, never had real-time gameplay footage, and never really had anything finalised, it has a chokehold on Square Enix to this day. Versus 13 acted as a catalyst for Square Enix in untold ways, and we’re going to break down why.
The Origins Of Final Fantasy Versus 13
Final Fantasy Versus 13 wasunveiled in 2006 at that year’s E3 presentation. Intended as the foil to Final Fantasy 13’s disconnected worlds, Versus 13 would serve as one thematically connected world and the two games would share a mythos - the goddess Etro. Except that’s not quite what ended up happening.
From the very beginning,the majority of Versus 13 was in flux. Certain elements, like Noctis and the city of Insomnia, were concrete from the beginning, but just about everything else was liable to change at a moment’s notice. Every showcase for the game, the majority of which occurred behind closed doors, was later admitted tonot actually being final footage in any wayand that most of it wouldn’t even be in the game. It was a proof of existence more than marked progress.
In ways,Versus 13 was always at the lightbulb stage of development. There was a cool idea, scenes were built around that idea, but nothing in between ever manifested. They admitted most gameplay wasn’t live, designs would alternate between trailers, the development tools behind it were never finalised, and the greater series it was part of struggled to coalesce.
Versus 13 was originally being developed on the brand new Crystal Tools engine when it began, and then a brand new Luminous Engine was built for it, which was used in the final version of FFXV.
You see,Versus 13 wasn’t the only game intended to share the mythos of FF13. There was also Final Fantasy Agito XIII, which later split into Type-0 and Agito (which itself then was later replaced by Final Fantasy Awakening). This set of games would collectively make the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries of Final Fantasy, all intended to share the lore of FF13 while offering different perspectives on it.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13
Final Fantasy Agito
While many of those games ended up coming out in some form or another, the public idea of what Versus 13 was meant to be never solidified nor did a firm vision emerge within Square Enix. After years of rumours,Versus XIII was quietly cancelled and replaced with Final Fantasy XV.
The Games That Versus 13 Did Become
While Versus 13 itself never ended up being a real game in any tangible form, the cultural impact it had within and without Square Enix can’t be understated. They willed into existence a game that never really existed and were forced to commit to it. In that sense, we ended up getting quite a few games from Versus 13’s smouldering bones.
Final Fantasy 13 Series
In reality, Versus 13 was born from the base 13 rather than the other way around, though the existence of the latter no doubt had an effect on the former. Both were announced at Square Enix’s 2006 E3 conference. FF13 would go on to form a trilogy that would be completed by 2013 that moreheavily delved into the original mythos surrounding the gods Etro and Bhunivelze.
Final Fantasy Type-0
Originally revealed as Final Fantasy Agito 13 also at the 2006 Square Enix E3 presentation, it would later become Type-0 by the time of its 2011 release for the PSP. Type-0 was intended for mobile phones at first, though they struggled to optimise it around touchscreen controls and other technical limitations.Type-0 also shifted away from much of the sharedlore that the Versus 13 series was meant to use, though it still kept many of the same terms and themes for its own story.
Final Fantasy 15
The most famed (or perhaps infamous) of them all, Final Fantasy 15 was formally unveiled in 2013 at E3, and finally released in 2016. That markedten years since its initial reveal as Versus 13and a console launch a generation later than initially intended. FFXV is the core bones of Versus 13 based on what was actually revealed, though it is impossible to say how much of what actually released was ever planned for the original Versus 13.
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts is actually much older than even the initial reveal of Versus 13, having first released in 2002. However, both were directed by Tetsuya Nomura, which becomes ever more apparent as time goes on.The secret ending of the original Kingdom Hearts very much echoes the style of the Versus 13 reveal trailer, and the addition of Verum Rex in Kingdom Hearts 3 is an all-too-obvious allusion to Noctis and co.
Pulling from the heavy cultural impact of Versus 13 we also have Reynatis. Though not in any way connected, it’s pretty hard to deny the clear inspirations in its design and gameplay.
Why Is Versus 13 So Important To Kingdom Hearts?
Unlike Final Fantasy, which has with time changed directors, composers, artists, and all other creatives behind the projects, Kingdom Hearts has squarely remained the purview of Tetsuya Nomura. This is important in understanding Versus 13 in a deeply personal yet hilariously convoluted fashion -Nomura was also the director and designer of Versus 13. So while Nomura had little creative input on Final Fantasy 15 as it was released, he was still the designer behind the majority of the characters used, despite his initial vision of Versus 13 not quite being realised.
So how does this relate to Kingdom Hearts? Well for a long time, it doesn’t. In the Final Mix version of the original Kingdom Hearts, the secret ending is very much pulling from the same creative thread that spawned Versus 13, though that’s more an inspiration than a dedicated influence. No,it’s with Kingdom Hearts 3 that Versus 13’s impact becomes obvious.
Upon entering the Toy Story world, you are greeted with a CG cutscene that doesn’t quite match the style of anything else in the game. SuddenlyYozora appears, someone who looks eerily like Noctis,and friends appear fighting in a near-future city that eerily looks like Versus 13’s Insomnia. We could even call this an absurdly self-indulgent petty choice to spite Versus 13’s cancellation, but of course, it goes deeper than that.
With the Re:Mind DLC for KH3, we see an expanded and alternate version of the game’s ending, including the brand-new secret boss - Yozora from Verum Rex. This boss fight was so difficult they even added different endings to it, one of which blatantlyrecreates the scene of Noctis brooding in the back of his car, this time with Yozora in his place.
Continuing the wonderful trend of early Disney actors appearing in Kingdom Hearts, Yozora is voiced by Dylan Sprouse.
Ah, but it can’t end there. This also backs up the secret ending of the original game, which shows Sora in (presumably) real-world Shibuya, and Riku in (again, presumably) Insomnia, twin-towered Citadel and all. Melody of Memory goes further, calling this world Quadratum and that it is part of’Unreality', functioning off different rules from the rest of the Kingdom Hearts series thus far.
So in short,Kingdom Hearts 4 will likely be the closest to what Versus 13 was originally intended to be.
Why Is Versus 13 So Popular?
So what happened at Square Enix that of all the games they made, all the titles revealed without more firm foundations, why did the public latch onto Versus 13 so much to the point that it is directly impacting games and culture almost 20 years later? To be completely honest, it’s pretty simple -Versus 13 looked cool.
It’s not particularly any deeper than that. It was revealed in 2006 when that exact style - dark-haired, edgy brooding protagonist - was all the rage. Without the need to confine itself to defined gameplay ideas or the limitations of what they could actually reasonably render,they could go maximalist in every regard. Glimmering city at night, gigantic machines, warping across the city in an instant. It was just undeniably cool in a way the average mind of 2006 could never deny.
While we may never see the Versus 13 that was originally planned, that’s ok.What is the point of art but to make you feel something?To inspire the creation of even more art? While Versus 13 may have never been real, the impact of it has had a larger effect on culture than almost anything else Square Enix has actually made since.
