14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer tri-Ace, the company behind titles like Star Ocean and Resonance of Fate, has announced that it has worked with Square Enix on the development of Final Fantasy XIII-2, although it’s not clear if gamers will be able to detect the company’s contribution.
One of the developers working on the game Tweeted about the contribution made by tri-Ace, saying that the company offered help on creating the game design, art and on the programming, while also producing some of the game assets.
The first suggestion of involvement from tri-Ace came from the credits of Final Fantasy XIII-2, which also suggest that some game development tasks were outsourced to a company based in China.
Square Enix has always been very proud of the fact that all development duties linked to its venerable franchise were handled in-house, with the company making sure that everything is well integrated into the game universe and its themes.
tri-Ace was created in 1995 by former Yoshiharu Gotanda, a programmer, Masaki Norimoto, a game designer and Joe Asanuma, who all worked in the telecom sector before that.
The developer is best known for the Star Ocean series of role playing game, which were also published by Square Enix, but it has also worked on Infinite Undiscovery, Valkyrie Profile and is now getting ready to launch Frontier Game during 2012.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been developed very quickly by the standards of the series, launching only two years after the initial installment in the series.
The developers promised that the new game will fix all the problems that gamers had with the concepts, including more open gameplay, a smoother battle system and more character development.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 can be played by gamers in Japan and those in the West will get a launch on both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 during the second month of 2012.