It's hard to call Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae a "demo." Most demos consist of a few short levels, possibly followed up by a trailer. Final Fantasy XV, by contrast, basically set players loose in a massive section of its grandiose world.

Of course, there's a good chance that the area fans played through will be completely different whenever the final version is released — but the Episode Duscae demo was basically a huge, open-world look at an unfinished Final Fantasy XV.

"Unfinished" is the operative word: Square Enix made sure fans knew they were playing a game that wasn't quite ready, and that there would probably be some pre-release weirdness in the demo. They were right: framerate issues and other glitches were prevalent in certain areas of the demo — but most fans seemingly ignored said issues. Sure, some people complained — but the majority seemed content to keep playing more Final Fantasy XV.

That's why Square Enix's latest announcement comes as such a surprise: instead of simply moving on and completing the core game, the team behind Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae will be releasing a Version 2.0 sometime in June.

The Final Fantasy XV world wasn't perfect, but the game clearly wasn't done yet. Complaints were pretty limited, as gamers seemed far more interested in exploring the demo than worrying about potential framerate issues. So, if the complaints weren't all that widespread, why bother releasing an update for the game?

Well, if Version 2.0 of the demo is designed to address Final Fantasy XV's technical issues, it's possible that Square Enix is using Episode Duscae as something of a testbed. After all, it'd probably be a lot easier for the team to test out incremental updates in the demo than in the final game. It's easy to imagine Square Enix testing out a new feature in the demo, then transferring what it learned into the final game.

There's still a lot of questions about the Version 2.0 demo: will Square Enix open it up to everyone? What sort of changes will be made? Will Noctis still be able to jump into traffic in order to escape the map?

While these questions remain unanswered for the time being, fans probably won't have to wait much longer for further information: Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae Version 2.0 is set for release sometime in June.


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