By Andrew Burnes

The Final Fantasy series is one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, with over 135 million copies sold worldwide. Each release employs the highest possible production values and pushes the limit of game technology with cutting-edge effects, massive worlds, and the latest rendering techniques. Last November, the critically-acclaimed FINAL FANTASY XV launched on current-gen consoles, and today at a special NVIDIA event at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, Square Enix's FINAL FANTASY XV Director, Hajime Tabata, made a surprise appearance to unveil FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION .

To achieve the creation of this highest-end edition of FINAL FANTASY XV, Square Enix has partnered with NVIDIA to integrate several of the world's best real-time visual effects, courtesy of our GameWorks library, in addition to NVIDIA Highlights, NVIDIA Ansel, and GeForce Experience's extensive suite of features. Take a first look below in the debut trailer for FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION, and keep on reading to learn more.

As Rev Lebaredian, NVIDIA's senior vice president of GameWorks, said, "Our goal is to help game developers deliver jaw-dropping gaming experiences by pushing the state of the art in graphics and physics technologies." With the integration of NVIDIA Flow, NVIDIA HairWorks, NVIDIA Hybrid Frustum Traced Shadows, NVIDIA Turf Effects, and NVIDIA Voxel Ambient Occlusion, we have helped Square Enix achieve their ultimate vision for FINAL FANTASY XV. But of course, "this must be done in a production-oriented way, and supported with the engineering expertise necessary to make it feasible for developers." As such, NVIDIA has provided Square Enix with on-site engineering expertise, graphics and physics simulation middleware, developer tools, and source code to accelerate production and to empower their own developers to iterate and update as necessary to meet their needs.

"With the help of NVIDIA, we are creating a stunning visual experience in FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION, one worthy of this beloved franchise," said Hajime Tabata. "NVIDIA pushes the pace of innovation in our industry, and that benefits gamers and developers alike."

This collaboration has seen Square Enix's next-gen Luminous Engine loaded with the most advanced visual effects available, resulting in the creation of the most beautiful open-world game ever made. Each visual effect affects different aspects of the game, enhancing virtually every scene from start to finish of the massive game.

Shadows are one of the most important elements of any game for creating realistic and believable worlds. In FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION, Square Enix have cranked up the fidelity and resolution of the game's shadows, and are also enhancing the player's avatar with our Hybrid Frustum Traced Shadow technology. This enables the player's character to cast highly detailed, extremely precise shadows onto himself, further improving image quality.

In addition to shadow techniques such as NVIDIA HFTS, games employ Ambient Occlusion techniques to render contact shadows where two surfaces or objects meet, and where an object blocks light from reaching another nearby game element. This helps ground characters, adds depth perception to objects and fine detail, and often adds shadow detail to characters' clothes and hair, and grass. Without these shadows, scenes appear flat and unrealistic, and objects appear to float. By introducing NVIDIA Voxel Ambient Occlusion, FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION receives the highest-quality Ambient Occlusion shadowing available on any platform.

With VXAO, occlusion and lighting information is gathered from a 'world space' voxel representation of a scene, which takes into account a large area around the viewer. Included in this voxelization are objects and details currently invisible to the viewer, and those behind the viewer, too. The result is scene-wide Ambient Occlusion shadowing, instead of 'screen space' shadowing used by other techniques that merely render AO shadows based on what you the player can currently see. This allows VXAO shadows to be cast into a scene from objects near to the player but just outside of their view, and from occluded objects in the distance large enough to affect the appearance of the scene. Furthermore, VXAO's precision and accuracy enables significantly improved Ambient Occlusion shadowing in detailed environments, as is particularly evident here.

In FINAL FANTASY XV's vast open world, massive portions of land are covered by grass and other foliage. To enhance these areas NVIDIA Turf Effects have been integrated, turning tufts of boot-high grass into fields of knee-high, dynamic grass that sways in the wind and is accurately shadowed by VXAO. Furthermore, as players, enemies, animals and other NPCs move through the grass, individual pieces of the tessellated greenery will bend and flatten, leaving visible trails that players can follow when in pursuit of a fleeing foe. This further increases immersion and visual fidelity,