Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, art director of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.In a recent interview with True Achievements, he confirmed that we have lost a curious alternate universe, where Final Fantasy XV is made in the Canadian Eidos-Montréal.FFXV has a very long history of creation, which stretches back to the not yet released, but announced Final Fantasy Versus XIII era PlayStation 3.Square Enix was restarting development of the project and among other things was considering handing it over to its western studios.That's when the authors of the last Deus Ex had time to work on Final Fantasy.I was the art director there for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.Then I became the executive art director of Mankind Divided.Then we tried to make Final Fantasy XV.Then they decided to bring the game back to Japan.I think it was a big mistake, but that's how it happened.Our [vision for the game] was very, very cool.Jonathan Jacques-BellettIn 2012, Jacques-Bellett wrote in response to a fan that the next Eidos-Montréal project would blow the roof off with its coolness.Here he seems to have meant Final Fantasy, not Mankind Divided.Other details Jacques-Belletet does not voice, but perhaps Super Bunnyhop knows them: back in 2018, the blogger, citing his own sources, said that Eidos-Montréal was at one point working on a new Final Fantasy.The Super Bunnyhop video revealed the following details:The idea to create an RPG that is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy was born at Eidos-Montréal around 2011, when Human Revolution was already out, became successful, and the studio was wondering what it would work on next.Square Enix management approved the idea and suggested making it the next flagship Final Fantasy, not just a similar game.Square Enix mistrusted their Japanese studio after FFXIII received bad reviews and FFXIV had a terrible start.The project was codenamed Project W.Around 2012, Jacques-Belleth published pictures on his blog - Super Bunnyhop believes that they somehow refer to Project W.In 2012, the Eidos-Montréal team flew to Japan to present the game.There they presented a list of the main features: RPG in the format of an epic sci-fi space opera, which focuses on what Final Fantasy is attractive in the eyes of Western players.The visual motif was based on fractals, which folded into a kaleidoscope of space.Thus, space was not empty blackness.The engine had to render seamless transitions from the planet's surface to space and back.The hero wandered the galaxy in search of the love of his life, named Nova.But at some point, a love triangle with a \"25-year-old femme fatale\" was forming.The tense relationship between the three characters, who are forced to fight together, was supposed to add up to \"exciting and visually superior action.\"Square Enix executives didn't like the project.They tried to push it as a new franchise, but in the middle of 2013 this plan was also abandoned because the risks were too high.As Super Bunnyhop supposes, the death of Project W is connected with the fact that Final Fantasy is extremely popular in Japan - the Square Enix bosses were not sure that the Western \"finale\" will go in their native country.In addition, in 2013, Square Enix got a new president - Yosuke Matsuda.Judging by the further crises in the Western SE studios, Matsuda does not really understand what to do with foreign teams - Project W may have died because of this.
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