Nightmarish news for those looking forward to the Final Fantasy XIII spin-off Versus XIII as one source is claiming that the game has been put “on hold”, dun dun duuun! The origin of this rumor is a post on finalfantasyforums.org which is itself citing a Famitsu interveiw with Tetsuya Nomura as the source of this bombshell.

The alleged reason behind this production hiatus is that Square Enix wants to devote all development resources to the ever elusive Final Fantasy XIII, wait until that is released, and then continue with Versus XIII. Until that time, Versus XIII will be running on a skeleton service as some concept art and story details are completed.

While it is looking like this isn’t one of those situations where “on hold” means “cancelled” it’s still very frustrating and not in the least bit suprising for those fans of the series that have been holding on ever so patiently through what has been a total media blackout. At least they can sleep safe in the knowledge that Square Enix is really putting everything they can into getting Final Fantasy XIII out the door. Fingers crossed for a late ‘08 release guys!

Update: Looks like the rumor mill got it wrong this time. According to Square Enix, “Reports that development for Final Fantasy Versus XIII is on hold are false. The truth of the situation is that when free, some staff from the Versus team have been helping with the XIII team on development of Final Fantasy XIII. Development for both titles is continuing as originally scheduled.”