Final Fantasy XV is getting an anime prequel next month

Beware of spoilers in this new trailer for Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn Prologue. It is an animated lead-in to Episode Ardyn, the final piece of DLC for Final Fantasy XV, centered around Ardyn, a major character in the game.

The trailer seems to imply that the anime will focus on Ardyn’s backstory, most of which was revealed or hinted at within FFXV already, but I guess it’s nice to see it all laid out. The trailer ends with a release month of February 2019, which will precede the DLC episode releasing in March.

It is currently unclear if Episode Ardyn Prologue will take the form of a film, short, episodic series, or something else. But it is clear that it will feature lots of angry dudes wearing capes.

Bizarrely, this will be the third animated spinoff of this one single game. Prior to FFXV’s release in 2016, Square Enix released two prequels: Brotherhood, an anime mini-series, and Kingsglaive, a star-studded CGI film. Episode Ardyn Prologue appears to serve a similar purpose for the upcoming DLC episode.

Now that all future DLC has been scrapped, Episode Ardyn will serve as the fourth and final DLC episode for FFXV, marking the end of a game with one hell of a tumultuous development period. Having originally been announced in 2006, the game released a decade later under a different name and director, and continued to be updated with regular story and gameplay updates in the years since. There’s an MMO inside the game now. It’s bonkers.

Not long now until we get to see what Episode Ardyn – and Episode Ardyn Prologue – has to say about these characters, and how this fantasy will finally end (see what I did there?).