Xbox Living

Unlike its predecessor, Final Fantasy XIII-2 will fit onto one disc on the Xbox 360 console, Square Enix has revealed.

Final Fantasy XIII had three discs to hold all of the content in that game. Other high-profile games, such as Mass Effect 2 and L.A. Noire, have recently shipped with multiple discs.

This doesn’t mean a shorter game, or less content, however. Instead, the game simply uses less pre-rendered video scenes that are stored on the disc. Instead, action cutscenes will be rendered on-the-fly by the Xbox 360 console. Square Enix promises about 40 hours of gameplay in Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is due out on December 15 in Japan, but worldwide markets will be waiting until 2012 to try out the sequel. North America will get the game on January 31, 2012, while Europe gets it on February 3.

Good news if you’re a bit too lazy to get up and swap discs once every ten hours or so.