Final Fantasy XVI - Release 22nd June 2023
Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 8:13 pm
Since we don't have a thread for it, I guess I'll do it.
So, Sony's September 16th PS5 event last night opened with a trailer for the next mainline FF game, XVI.
It's currently billed as a console exclusive for Playstation 5, likely only temporarily, much like Final Fantasy VII Remake. Unfortunately there is no release date billed, but there are a few things that we do know about the game. Things that lead me to be very interested.
Who's actually making it?
So, this game is being built by Square Enix's "Business Unit III", which after the recent reshuffle is the unit currently charged with Final Fantasy XI upkeep, and ongoing Final Fantasy XIV development. It's also headed by one Naoki Yoshida. Yoshida, or Yoshi-P as he's often known as, has become something of a legend in the Final Fantasy fanbase for his role as the replacement director and producer for Final Fantasy XIV. When XIV first launched it was a shitshow that had real potential to sink FF as a brand. As a result, they brought in Yoshi as damage control and he managed to not only rebuild the game into the relaunched 2.0 version, "A Realm Reborn", but he did it while simultaneously keeping the original 1.0 updated and progressing for a very significant portion of that development time. In effect making two MMOs at the same time.
7 years later and the latest expansion for XIV, "Shadowbringers", is widely regarded as the best piece of Final Fantasy content in 20+ years.
While he's not directing this game, due to his ongoing commitments to XIV, it has been confirmed that he is working as the producer for XVI.
So, Sony's September 16th PS5 event last night opened with a trailer for the next mainline FF game, XVI.
It's currently billed as a console exclusive for Playstation 5, likely only temporarily, much like Final Fantasy VII Remake. Unfortunately there is no release date billed, but there are a few things that we do know about the game. Things that lead me to be very interested.
Who's actually making it?
So, this game is being built by Square Enix's "Business Unit III", which after the recent reshuffle is the unit currently charged with Final Fantasy XI upkeep, and ongoing Final Fantasy XIV development. It's also headed by one Naoki Yoshida. Yoshida, or Yoshi-P as he's often known as, has become something of a legend in the Final Fantasy fanbase for his role as the replacement director and producer for Final Fantasy XIV. When XIV first launched it was a shitshow that had real potential to sink FF as a brand. As a result, they brought in Yoshi as damage control and he managed to not only rebuild the game into the relaunched 2.0 version, "A Realm Reborn", but he did it while simultaneously keeping the original 1.0 updated and progressing for a very significant portion of that development time. In effect making two MMOs at the same time.
7 years later and the latest expansion for XIV, "Shadowbringers", is widely regarded as the best piece of Final Fantasy content in 20+ years.
While he's not directing this game, due to his ongoing commitments to XIV, it has been confirmed that he is working as the producer for XVI.
twitter.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/1306327636226928646
What this means is that, while Yoshi probably won't use the same time management systems he needed for XIV because that was insane, he at least knows how to run a project to schedule, so we shouldn't need to worry about the same levels of delays that other recent FF games have been subjected to.
As for the director: that seat is being filled by Hiroshi Takai, who directed The Last remnant, as well as being assistant director on ARR. I personally don't have as much familiarity with him, so I couldn't say one way or the other if the man knows his stuff.
I also can't confirm one way or the other now, but people more versed in music than me have said that Masayoshi Soken, the composer for FFXIV, was the one who scored the trailer, and from what I can tell, that seems likely. Which is absolutely fine by me, the man makes bangers.
Gameplay
Following on from who's making it: recently Square Enix managed to headhunt a Capcom developer who has worked on Devil May Cry as a battle designer. While it's not confirmed Ryota Suzuki is working on this game, the gameplay definitely looks like it could be a good place to put him. It looks very much like XV and VIIR, but even from just the snippets of gameplay we saw in the trailer I could see perfect dodges into parries, combos into ranged finishers, what is essentially a stinger, launchers, aerials, different abilities tied to eikons (presumably). All in there's real potential for this to have a very robust combat system, and if it follows from the work that 7R did it should be really good.
All in, this should have a really good team behind it, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it ends up.
Please don't strawberry float this up.
Anyway, feel free to talk about how Final Fantasy hasn't been good since X, or VII, or was never good, or how Emet-Selch did nothing wrong, etc.
Edit:
Trailer from the Sony State of Play June 2022:
Edit:
Release date trailer from the Game Awards 2022