It’s hardly the biggest surprise in the world, but a new poster advertising campaign in the US has confirmed that Final Fantasy XIII will be released in the region in 2010 – scuppering any lingering hopes that the game would make it to retail this year.

The confirmation comes form a new LA advertising campaign which simply states ‘Coming 2010’.

FFXIII is scheduled to hit Japanese stores before the end of the year, but with Square claiming that work on the Xbox 360 version (which is not being released in Japan) will not begin until the PS3 version is complete, a 2009 release was already considered impossible.

A bigger question is whether Square Enix will delay the US release of the game until its Europe-orientated localisations are complete – if not, European gamers could face an even bigger wait to get their hands on the title.

Such is the appetite for the RPG sequel that sales of PS3 recently surged 274 per cent in Japan after the release of a playable demo of the game.