Final Fantasy XV art director Yusuke Naora has shared a new piece of “Agni’s Philosophy” artwork on his Facebook page. However, this isn’t a sign that the hero of Square Enix’s famous new-generation tech demo is returning. The new artwork / sketch is actually Naora’s “Happy New Year” card and it’s captioned with a following message: “Happy New Year! Thank you again for this year. This year I drew a new greetings illustration!” Since Agni and her world was created specially for the Luminous engine tech demo, wouldn’t it be awesome if she made a cameo in Final Fantasy XV? After all, it’s the game using “her” game engine.
What is Agni’s Philosophy?
Agni’s Philosophy is a Final Fantasy tech demo revealed in E3 2012, showing how the graphics of upcoming Final Fantasy games would look like in the future. The tech demo was created to show off the power of Luminous engine and it was powered by single nVidia GTX 680 graphics card with 16GB ram, which is much more powerful combination than what the current consoles have. You can watch the tech demo below. Everything in the video is running in real-time, according to Square Enix.
Categories: Portal
SQUARE PORTAL 
The ear in the CG image is missing.
Hah, you could say that, but I think it’s actually hidden behind the hair since her ear is barely visible from other angles. Anyway, this artwork is pretty glorious even if it’s not a hint or anything – I’d not be surprised if he just fell in love with the character design and wanted to use it for the NYE cards too. :)
No, I mean the CG image that links to this post. Whoever edited it, edited out her ear.
https://squareportal.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/agnisphilsophybanner.jpg?w=1250&h=600&crop=1
Hm. I don’t think it’s coincidence that he used Agni of all characters as a happy new year graphic. Crossing my fingers.
I forgot about that Tech Demo – be great though if they did keep the idea and expanded it into a fully fledged game
Nice piece by Yusuke though!
This is freaking awesome.
Final Fantasy XVI confirmed?
I would like more to have her (and that place!) in FFXV.
I would like to have her in her own game, unburdened by an already-existing mythos or a roman numeral. She deserves that much. Still, I’m not holding my breath.
Yeah, that might be the wisest thing to do now. Still, I would be happy to see Square Enix using the potential we already saw in the tech demo. A few years ago, Square Enix discussed about making Final Fantasy a more frequent release like some of the biggest franchises in the world. However, I think after the problems they faced with Crystal Tools and developing the the Fabula Nova Crystallis games, those plans might have been cancelled. Also seeing titles like AC: Unity suffering from rushed releases, might have influenced their decisions about Final Fantasy’s future. Though, it would be interesting to see FFXV releasing and Final Fantasy XVI arriving a year after. If we are totally realistic, this won’t be happening, but it’s always nice to dream.
At first, Square Enix has to finish and polish Final Fantasy XV, and try to make it the best product as possible. It’s still important to understand that the company has many internal teams who are working on other projects at same time. These projects could be their next blockbuster games or smaller releases like Mevius Final Fantasy. This actually reminds me of thing I want to talk about: So often I see people stating hat Square Enix should hire or move all developers to work on the same project in order to finish the game faster. That’s not really how it works.
One benefit working with a huge team is that there are more resources to create game assets. However, this can become very expensive for the company, thus, lowering the overall profit. At the worst case, this will lead to big layoffs after the game is out – even closing the studio. This is why many developers including Tabata, like to work with smaller teams, which have greater benefits: the group can react to tester and fan feedback more easily, which allows them to change things faster, communicating between team members is more natural when members know each other and each individuals’ potential will be noted, which helps the lead to make most out of the whole team. This is how a dynamic development team works. There are benefits in both,but currently it seems like most developers (are starting to) prefer the smaller teams. To understand this point easier, let’s use a real life example: having lots of friends is nice, but if you have too many of them, creating a real connection with each becomes harder.
Anyway… Hopefully Agni returns someday. I would be glad to learn her story, but it’s not vital. :)
I have no worries about Square Enix closing down any time soon. The company has picked up spectacularly from profits from its MMOs and the mobile market, and have the income from their worldwide subsidiaries, which are apparently continuing to show a profit. Their blockbuster titles are expensive, but the work put into them means they can use the engines and set-ups again for different games, increasing their profits.
Oh yeah, and I totally understand Unity, and DA: Inquisition. All the news is saying they were released in what I would call a piteous state. No game should need that many patches and fixes after release. Glad I didn’t buy.
Agni making a cameo in FFXV, i´m calling it now !