Often developers are asked to mention a game that particularly impressed them, and it's rather uncommon to see them point to a direct competitor within the same genre as their own creations. This is the case of Final Fantasy XV Game Director Hajime Tabata, that told 4Gamer that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is his game of the year for 2015.

Tabata-san mentioned that the game is the first open world RPG that impressed him so much due to the high level of what the development team managed to achieve. Not only in development, but also in marketing the they fully embraced the new generation of high definition games. The budget allocation after launch was also impressive, with the next moves coming immediately after launch. According to Tabata-san, this demonstrated the high level of the entire production.

Interestingly, when asked who drew his attention in 2015, Tabata-san brought up Nintendo, saying that he's curious to see what kind of competition they'll bring to the table from now on.

Finally, he mentioned that 2016 is the year in which Final Fantasy XV will finally launch,  hoping that gamers will look forward to the experience that can be found only in a state-of-the-art console game.