Arena Homme Plus, a men's fashion magazine from Japan, featured characters from the game modeling Prada's summer collection in 2012.

DLC costumes for Serah Farron & Noel Kreiss reference several video game characters, such as:
• Commander Shepard from Mass Effect 3.
• Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
• White & Black Mage from Final Fantasy series.

Even though Ultros claims to be an octopus in his DLC Coliseum fight, he only has 7 tentacles. This makes him neither an octopus (eight tentacles) or a squid (ten tentacles).

During a cutscene where 'The Chaos' attempts to grab Lightning, there is a hidden message among the yellow lines as she disappears. The message says "Pray for Japan" which was not known because it was written in a different script (Etro Script, a 3rd type of language used in Final Fantasy XIII). This is most likely a reference to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan.