According to Kotaku, Final Fantasy Versus XIII has Been Cancelled (Take That With a Grain of Salt...)

According to Kotaku, Square Enix has made the decision to simply cease production of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, similar to how Konami originally treated Metal Gear Solid: Rising before that project was resurrected by Platinum. I would take this news with a grain of salt, though. Kotaku's credibility took a major hit some weeks ago when they falsely reported that a Halo 2 HD remake was in the works, only to have Microsoft and 343 immediately confirm that story to be false.


Final Fantasy Versus XIII was originally conceived as one of the 3 games that would make up the Fabula Nova Crystallis, alongside Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII. XIII would be for the PS3 and Xbox 360, Versus would be PS3 exclusive, and Agito would be a mobile phone game. As time passed, Agito was converted to a PSP game and gained the new title of Final Fantasy Type-0, losing the XIII moniker, although still part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis. Type-0 has yet to see a release outside of Japan since last year, although Square Enix claims it is working on translating the game, despite the PSP being mostly dead. 


Quite some time ago, gameplay footage of Versus was finally displayed, showcasing a combat system similar to the Kingdom Hearts series, just as director Tetsuya Nomura had promised. In reality, this was actually pre-rendered footage made to look like gameplay footage since the game had to change engines due to Crystal Tools being such a high performance engine.


If this news is true, it's great news for Final Fantasy and fans of it in general. This game was to be Tetsuya Nomura's ideal Final Fantasy game without the restraints of Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yasumi Matsuno, or Motomu Toriyama. Nomura wished to create a "fantasy based on reality," essentially a Final Fantasy game that takes place in the real world, similar to the original concept of Final Fantasy VII that was scrapped.


Additionally, should this news be true, it means that Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy XV, and a remake of Final Fantasy VII have just been pushed up in SE's line of priorities.


Then again, this is Kotaku that is reporting this.


Update: Disregard that, Kotaku lied AGAIN. Square Enix is reporting that the game is not cancelled and very much still in development.