DLC likely coming in late March

[Jecht Shot]

A rumor originally reported by Kouli (a well-respected member of the Gamefaqs community; I know I know, lol @ Gamefaqs but Kouli is a good, reliable guy). This story was also picked up on in the Dutch Playstation magazine, as per finalfantasy-xiii.net. Two different sources, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say its probably true.

Supposedly the information will be officially released on the official site tomorrow (don't know if its the JP or NA site). The first update is believed to include:

- New Game Plus: Clear Data will let you keep Items, Gil, Abilities...etc and start at the beginning
- More missions: #65 to #87
- Weather System
- and two unknown things yet to be known

Since they had to leave some stuff out, I'm not at all surprised at this. I figured they'd find some way to release it, and DLC is the perfect avenue for that. Although I thought the weather system was already included in the game, since they hyped it up on the JP site close to release.

This may also mean that the DLC era will mark the end of the "international" versions as we know it (thankfully), at least for PS3 and 360.

Links below. Please be very, very careful when reading the Gamefaqs boards tho. That place is A. terrible to begin with and B. littered with major spoilers.

This Week's Ultimania Says DLC In Late March (Rumor) - Final Fantasy XIII Message Board for PlayStation 3 - GameFAQs

Rumour: Final Fantasy XIII DLC Coming Soon? - Final Fantasy XIII: News, Trailers & Screens ~ Final Fantasy-XIII.net

[Rostum]

This may also mean that the DLC era will mark the end of the "international" versions as we know it (thankfully), at least for PS3 and 360.

This is what excites me the most about DLC when it comes to Square games.

I just hope they don't start charging for the content when it's so close to release and probably won't offer anything of real substance other than polish that probably should have been in there but perhaps didn't meet the time requirements of the project (which happens a lot).

[Rad Bromance]

If this is true, that's absolutely wonderful.

Also:

According to art director Isamu Kamikokuryou, many additional areas that were functioning in an unreleased build, from Team Nora's secret base, to Lightning's home and even a zoo, were cut from the game owing to concerns about the game's length and volume. Kamikokuryou additionally remarked that the volume of content cut was, in itself, enough to make another game.

This gives me hope for lots of DLC.

[Roogle]

A rumor originally reported by Kouli (a well-respected member of the Gamefaqs community; I know I know, lol @ Gamefaqs but Kouli is a good, reliable guy).

Kouli is a dependable source for this kind of news.

Since they had to leave some stuff out, I'm not at all surprised at this. I figured they'd find some way to release it, and DLC is the perfect avenue for that. Although I thought the weather system was already included in the game, since they hyped it up on the JP site close to release.

This may also mean that the DLC era will mark the end of the "international" versions as we know it (thankfully), at least for PS3 and 360.

I fully support downloadable content if it means the end of International versions of games. I really disliked having to wait six months for the release of Final Fantasy X-2 only to have the game pop up again months later as Final Fantasy X-2 International + Last Mission. If I lived in Japan and could understand Japanese, I would probably wait months after the release of titles and pick up the final edition of games instead of playing them when they're released only to find that a new version was released.

[LunarWeaver]

If they add a New Game +, I hope they also add a harder difficulty like Blue Dragon did.

[nirojan]

Nice...definetly pick this up. And to reiterate what OP said BE EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS ON GAMEFAQ'S SITE! DONT RISK IT IF YOU WANT TO STAY UNSPOILED!!!

[Roogle]

Could someone who has played the game elaborate a little on what a Weather System for Final Fantasy XIII might entail? From what I hear, the game does not have a World Map for weather to play a large influence on.

[Jecht Shot]

The Fal'cie can control the weather. In conjunction with this, in certain areas, there are machines that control the weather as well. During certain weather, certain monsters will appear. So, as far as I know, controlling the weather will affect the appearance of certain monsters. This was explored a bit in the prequel novels.

This feature is in the game already, but its just in one area I think. So maybe they're spreading it to other areas as well.

Also, it indeed turns out that the DLC content rumor is true:

Dutch OPM Final Fantasy XIII Feature and Interview Scans - Final Fantasy XIII: News, Trailers & Screens ~ Final Fantasy-XIII.net

Also, for those complaining about the (superior) Leona Lewis song, they said they wanted to localize the original Japanese song, but the Japanese singer had difficulty pulling it off. So they're experimenting this around. I, for one, am glad they did.

[Super Christ]

In my opinion this could be either good news or bad news.

If they don't charge for it, it's great news.
If they do charge for it, it's bad news.

I'm betting they will charge. As a rule, I refuse to pay for DLC, since it's usually stuff that should have been in the game in the first place. Even though I alone won't make a difference in their market practices, I still hate to encourage the practice of charging for these so called extras.

[Loony BoB]

I'm confident they'll charge for it. This is SE. They already do it for FFXI.

[Wolf Kanno]

According to art director Isamu Kamikokuryou, many additional areas that were functioning in an unreleased build, from Team Nora's secret base, to Lightning's home and even a zoo, were cut from the game owing to concerns about the game's length and volume. Kamikokuryou additionally remarked that the volume of content cut was, in itself, enough to make another game.

This gives me hope for lots of DLC.

This... actually kinda pisses me off to hear about this. Not sure how I feel that XIII might correct my early issues with it by adding new areas and dungeons to explore that I feel should have been there to begin with. We'll wait and see cause the areas mentioned do sound like terribly minor editions... I don't know, I've got mixed feelings.

This may also mean that the DLC era will mark the end of the "international" versions as we know it (thankfully), at least for PS3 and 360.

Thank god...

[Dreddz]

Shouldnt New Game Plus be in the game to begin with?

[VeloZer0]

It's not like all games have to ship with a New Game+ feature. And in reality it is mainly people who really like the game enough to pay for extra add-on DLC who are the ones who would like to play the game through multiple times.

[Raistlin]

Yeah, but it'd still be bull to make people pay for it.

[VeloZer0]

Yeah, but it'd still be bull to make people pay for it.

If that was all you were getting, then yes.
Well, thinking about it, if you were interested in New Game+'s there is no reason not to pay a few bucks for it. But that goes back into the whole debate about DLC as a concept.