Square Enix to launch Final Fantasy XVI in June
The action-focused RPG Final Fantasy XVI will be launched on June 22 for PlayStation 5, producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida has announced.
Yoshida said during a press event for FF XVI earlier this month in New York that he was aware Final Fantasy games could be delayed “at the last minute.” However, he told reporters that for FF XVI, “unless a meteor falls on Japan, there will be no delay.”
In 2016, Square Enix announced that FF XV would be delayed for two months, only six weeks before its scheduled release. Hajime Tabata, Square Enix’s former director, apologized for the delay.
Similar conditions happened with FF VII Remake. After announcing a release in early 2020, Square Enix moved the game’s arrival date by seven weeks. Given the company’s track record of delays, Square Enix’s decision to reveal FF XVI’s launch month at the December Game Awards was surprising.
Previously, FF XVI was scheduled for release in September 2020. However, Yoshida said in 2021 that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the game’s development.
The publisher decided to commit to an official release until the following year before deciding to pencil in a summer 2023 launch date.
Final Fantasy XVI PC version
In a post for the Japanese PlayStation Blog, Yoshida discussed various aspects of the upcoming FF XVI. He went into the ins and outs of its gameplay, main characters, plot and more.
Yoshida said the PC version of the game would “not come out in half a year.” The 49-year-old said this was because the team “spent a lot of time and money” perfecting the PS5 version.
He maintained that even if the team started optimizing the PC version soon after the PS5 version came out, they wouldn’t be able to do it in half a year.
Final Fantasy XVI in PS5
During a preview event, the game’s lead developers discussed the advantages of using Sony’s PS5 system.
Director Hiroshi Takai said that if the PS5 didn’t have the memory, transfer speed and SSD that it does, the team would “still be in development” right now.
Ryota Suzuki, the game’s combat director, elaborated on how the PS5 technology contributed to making the Eikons feel amazing.
“You are graphically representing the fists, claws, and wings [of the Eikon abilities], and all in real-time,” he said. He continued that these things are “all in real-time” and “all in these beautiful graphics.”
Suzuki said the PS5’s processing capacity allowed the game to accomplish all these tasks without introducing any noticeable lag. Since one of the key themes of this game is the Eikons, he said that the developers wanted the lore and the battles to reflect that.
Then, in an interview with Gematsu, Suzuki explained that the biggest obstacle was making acts surrounding the eikons feel like they relate to both the story and combat. Those include “how they feel, how they look, how they play,” and how they relate to where Clive is in the plot.
“Basically, when deciding on what to do with each of these battles, we kind of knew where the beats were going to be, and when Clive would encounter each of these Eikons. So each battle was given a theme,” he said.
“For example, for Ifrit versus Garuda, that theme was to do something that felt like a pro wrestling match—something that was like tokusatsu, like an Evangelion or Ultraman type of battle.”
