Final Fantasy 15 won't have traditional difficulty settings

When Final Fantasy 15 launches later this year, it won't offer the option to change the difficulty level. Instead, players will be able to switch between two different battle modes, each with its own level of challenge, according to its lead designer.

Masashi Takizawa of Square Enix elaborated on the updated battle mode system in a post to the official Final Fantasy 15 forum. "The equivalent to difficulty level settings in [FF15] is a system where you can switch between different battle modes," he wrote. "By having this ability to switch modes, we want to make it so that both players who like action oriented, technical gameplay and also those who want to fight at a slower, more relaxed pace can all enjoy the combat in their own style."

The team instituted these options as a reaction to fan complaints about the game's first publicly available demo, Episode Duscae. Fans found there to be spikes in difficulty during battles and other areas, and director Hajime Tabata promised in April that the staff would address the issue with new options to manage these and other challenging areas.

Members of the game's forum were first asked to pose questions to the development team about the next Final Fantasy title back in December. They asked not only about how changing the difficulty will affect the overall game, but about how exploration and warping across maps will work, too.

Different members of the project answered each question, with their responses posted to the website today.

Square Enix recently reconfirmed that more details about the release date for the long-delayed PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game will come in March, and that it's still on track to hit shelves this year. You can watch our gameplay overview of the fifteenth Final Fantasy below in the meantime.