It’s taken us over 10 years to get to this point, but Final Fantasy 15 is now available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. To mark this momentous occasion, Square Enix has uploaded a launch trailer, which in a way brings this game’s decadelong journey through development to a close.
At a little more than two minutes long, the “Ride Together” clip is mostly a collection of scenes we’ve seen before or will soon check out for ourselves, scored by Florence and the Machine’s cover of “Stand by Me.” The event the trailer is celebrating is far more exciting than the trailer itself, as it were, but that hasn’t always been the case for Final Fantasy 15.
Just yesterday, Square Enix released a live-action trailer for the game. It’s very ‘80s adventure movie-esque, with kids tackling some gigantic demons obscured by fog. It’s a memorable, novel take for Final Fantasy 15, whose preceding trailers focus heavily on computer-generated animation and the game itself.
Just a month ago, the CG-heavy “Omen” trailer got fans jazzed up. It functioned as both a teaser for the game and a Final Fantasy 15 short on its own ... plus it put an adorable dog in the spotlight, which always helps. Although heavily publicized ahead of its release, the “Omen” trailer was our first look at the game in a long time; Square Enix had a veritable stream of pre-release clips throughout 2016. But “Omen” struck a chord with fans thanks to its narrative focus and glossy visuals.
Just as striking: Remember this trailer from March’s big release date reveal presentation? It introduced “Stand by Me” as the game’s theme song, making the new gameplay footage all the more dramatic. Maybe our fondness for this clip is also colored by its use as the Uncovered: Final Fantasy 15 event’s centerpiece, although that event itself brings back painful memories of the game’s original September release date.
Even more worth a rewatch today is this video from E3 2013, when Square Enix announced that the grandiose game we’d known for seven years as Final Fantasy Versus 13 had transformed into Final Fantasy 15 instead. This trailer gave us our first substantive look at the world of Eos in two years, reintroducing Prince Noctis and the rest of the cast, and even showing off some more gameplay to boot.
For many Final Fantasy fans, this trailer’s debut was an unforgettable moment. Final Fantasy Versus 13 had gone missing from public view for two years, and the reveal that the PlayStation 3 game wasn’t dead, but instead had morphed into a PlayStation 4 mainline installment, was huge.
Much of what people liked about the last Final Fantasy Versus 13 trailer was preserved or expanded upon in the E3 2013 trailer. Looking back at 2011’s seven-minute Versus 13 trailer is still something of a nostalgia trip, though.
It’s hard to find a high-quality version of the very first trailer for Final Fantasy 15, neé Final Fantasy Versus 13, so this will have to do. It’s short, and there’s not a ton to see here, but it’s easy to see how it set the role-playing game fan base aflame for 10 years running.
We still have Final Fantasy 15’s downloadable content to get through, so it’s likely that Square Enix will keep pumping out trailers to support the game’s season pass. But this launch trailer preserves a moment we thought might never actually come, and we doubt that we’ll ever get another Final Fantasy 15 clip with this much weight behind it.
We’ve played and reviewed Final Fantasy 15 in its final state, and we were big fans. Check that out before dipping into this highly anticipated game.
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