Rumor: Eidos Montreal almost made a mainline Final Fantasy game

[NegaScott128]

"Project W:" When Eidos Montreal Was Making the Next Final Fantasy - YouTube

If you don't want to watch the whole video, here's a basic rundown:

• After Eidos Montreal launched Deus Ex: Human Revolution in 2011, one of the game's producers came up with a new RPG concept that was heavily inspired by JRPGs like Final Fantasy.
• The then-president of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada, gave Eidos Montreal the permission to create this new RPG as a new Final Fantasy game, and eventually began talks to make the game the next numbered FF title (at the time, this would've been XV). This was apparently due to Wada losing faith in the Japanese team after the polarizing response to XIII and the disastrous 1.0 version of XIV, and deciding to let a new team take a crack at the series.
• The project entered pre-production under the codename "Project W," because it was meant to be the first Western Final Fantasy game.
• The game was designed as a space opera with a visual design based on fractals, in which the protagonist would be searching for his love interest, Nova, only to enter a love triangle with a "femme-fatale" mercenary. The game's core storyline would center on the tension between these three characters. The game was also planned to have seamless travel from outer space to planetary surfaces.
• In 2012, the game was formally pitched to a number of FF series producers, where it was rejected.
• The game continued pre-production under the codename "Project Nova," where it was pitched to a number of other publishers including Microsoft and Sony. Unfortunately, no one was willing to cover the cost of the game, and the project had to be cancelled.
• Weta Workshop was allegedly also involved with the game in some capacity, a claim supported by photos of Deus Ex's art director visiting Weta Workshop in Winter of 2012.

[R3P0]

not sure of the truth behind this as Yoichi Wada was the reason XIV 1.0 was released in the state it was so he could get his bonus.