Players will take control of Final Fantasy XIII's main character Lightning as the main and only playable character. The battle system will be a heavily modified version of the Command Synergy Battle that the two previous games used; and will now feature real time features, such as taking control of the character's movements and attacks, or a real time block system. Players will be able to assing four commands to the face buttons of the controllers, allowing her to execute actions with precise timing.
Lightning will be fully customizable and will have a wide arrange of costumes, weapons, and different battle styles. The game will have a feature called the Overclock ability, which allows Lightning to slow the time for everything except her, at the cost of consuming time for the 13 day limit.
The game is set in a world called Novus Partus (New Offspring or New Children in Latin), which is composed of four islands connected by a Monorail. The game is said to contain traditional RPG elements such as dungeons, towns and shops. The world is said to end in 13 days, and it's up to Lightning to save it. Key words for the world's desing are "gothic, mechanical and fantasy". According to Toriyama, the world will face constant changes by the hand of a new weather system and day/night cycles.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will conclude the story of Lightning and will put her in her final battle. The game will follow Lightning's quest to save the world in 13 days. The game takes place hundreds of years after Final Fantasy XIII-2. Director Motomu Toriyama stated that Lightning is much stronger now.