Is Final Fantasy XV a step in the right direction??

[The Fury]

CladInShadows said:

FF12 had what was pretty close to a world map, I think. It was made up of fairly open non-linear maps with a lot of interconnected points.  It certainly wasn't in any way a "hallway" game.

You are right, pretty early on in the game, if you wanted to, you could wander to areas of the game far higher in level than you currently were, aside from some mini bosses in the way here or there, plus entirely optional areas too. It had an overworld map but that was more for fast travel than anything.