‘Battle Royale’ will be available as a free rental this weekend (Saturday, March 28th and Sunday, March 29th) on the Xbox One in celebration, as well as promotion, for Square Enix’s release of ‘Final Fantasy Type-0 HD.’ Unfortunately this seems to be limited to the UK, but you don’t have to own a copy of ‘Type-0’ in order to rent the movie from Xbox’s store.
There doesn’t seem to be any explanation as to why Square Enix chose the 2000 Japanese thriller ‘Battle Royale’ to tie to their release of ‘Type-0’ – both are about a group of battling students, sure, though one features students who fight against an evil empire, while the other features students fighting each other (unless ‘Type-0’ has some dark twist in its story, which would go with its ‘M’ rating). But lets not look a gift horse in the mouth; a free movie is a free movie, after all.
Here is a brief synopsis of ‘Type-0’s’ story provided in their store:
“Step into the fray as Class Zero, a group of fourteen students from an elite military academy whose country is attacked by an aggressive neighboring Empire. Using the powerful abilities and magic of all fourteen characters in fast-paced action RPG combat, players must face the brutality and injustices of war to uncover the secrets of its genesis.”
‘Final Fantasy Type-0 HD’ was released earlier this month on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and is rated ‘M’ for Mature for blood, drug references, suggestive themes, and violence. First copies of the game also come with a demo for the highly anticipated ‘Final Fantasy XV’, whose release date is still unknown.
In the last week Hajime Tabata, the director for ‘Final Fantasy Type-0’ as well as ‘Final Fantasy XV,’ has announced plans for a sequel to ‘Type-0,’ similar to what they did with ‘Final Fantasy X’ and ‘XIII’ – but don’t worry, that project is on hold until the release of ‘FFXV.’
