Final Fantasy 15 is coming to PC. But the PC isn’t just getting the most recent Final Fantasy game: it’s also getting a first-person mode, which users were able to play at Gamescom.
Put simply, it’s bonkers.
First-person modes in open-world, third-person RPGs aren’t new. But the difference the view makes can be staggering, as was seen with GTA 5 and more recently with the first-person only servers for Battlegrounds. Perspective changes everything, you see.
So on one level, it makes sense for FF15 to follow suit. There’s just one problem: in FF15, you warp around. A lot. Especially if you’re flinging from one rock to another, dodging fire as you go.
That works for the most part, although the camera sometimes gets stuck behind objects or Noctis warps in such a way that obscures him completely. And that’s with an over-the-shoulder view. First-person mode has the same issues, but as you’re much closer, your vision is obstructed even further.
When there aren’t too many enemies on screen, though, it’s a neat way to play FF15:
But that’s not always the case, especially if there’s a lot of shrubbery around:
The neat thing, at least in the build I played, is that you can switch between first and third persons pretty simply. I couldn’t read what the keyboard prompts were – the instructions were in German – but if you’re using a controller, pushing both the analog sticks in at once swapped the camera.
If you’re going to consistently play in first-person though, you’ll probably want to use a mouse and keyboard. I don’t say that as an incumbent PC player, but because of how quickly you’ll need to turn the camera around to change targets.
Going into first-person restricts your peripheral vision substantially, and if you’re playing with a controller your capacity for turning is real slow. You can see some of the struggles I had with that in this short clip below.
First-person mode will ship with FF15 when it launches on Steam and Origin next year. Any bets on how fast the initial first-person speedruns will take?
The author travelled to Gamescom as a guest of NVIDIA.
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