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Final Fantasy XVI: all the latest on the darkest FF yet

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  TODAY, 2:01 PM UTC

  Ash Parrish

  Final Fantasy XVI adds blood and grit but doesn’t change the series’ soul

  

  Image: Square Enix

  There’s a moment within the first quarter of Final Fantasy XVI in which Clive, the protagonist, faces an enemy that has withstood his strongest attacks. Beaten and worn out, the game prompts Clive to “accept the truth.” As he does, two limit-break bars (ones that Final Fantasy XIV players will recognize) appear. But they don’t just pop in as though the game was merely updating its UI to introduce a new feature — they burn on as though they’ve been branded onto the screen with a hot poker. It feels like the game wants you, too, to feel the flames that burn within Clive as you press in the thumbsticks to make him go Final Fantasy Super Saiyan. 

  I almost destroyed my TV, losing my grip on my controller as I pumped my fist into the air with an excited, “Oh f– yeah,” battle cry. That battle cry happened a lot.

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• Apr 13

  Ash Parrish

  In Final Fantasy XVI, you can command the dog (and a whole lot more)

  Square Enix

  Not to be outdone byTears of the Kingdom in the summer video game blockbuster hype generation category, Final Fantasy XVI got its own State of Play, showcasing over 20 minutes of gameplay.

  Final Fantasy XVI is a beautiful game, both within the cutscenes and gameplay. The combat looked slick and exciting. Clive flipped, dipped, and parried with a satisfying flourish, perfectly in line with the developers’ stated goal of making Final Fantasy XVI feel like a “high-speed rollercoaster.” The presentation went into detail on some of the smaller activities Clive can get up to when he’s not saving the world or doing whatever it is Clive does, as we’re not quite sure what his motivation is yet. Knowing the typical cadence of Final Fantasy stories, it’ll start out small, like “head to the village” and eventually end with “kill god.” There are hunts he can complete and what looks to be a wealth of sidequests. We haven’t seen any mini-games yet, but here’s hoping a version of Final Fantasy’s greatest card game, Triple Triad, will appear in some shape or form.

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• Ash Parrish

  Final Fantasy XVI has a medieval approach to diversity

  Image: Square Enix

  When Naoki Yoshida, producer of Final Fantasy XVI, was doing the first round of press tours to ramp up hype for the game last year, he gave an interview with IGN talking about the game’s apparent lack of diversity. When asked if players can expect characters of color in the game, Yoshida had this to say:

  Essentially, Yoshida said that because they’re basing the world of Valisthea on their idea of what the European continent was like in the past, the cast for their totally made-up world has to be all white. The quote was a rare miss from a generally well-liked developer, and it naturally upset fans of color.

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• Feb 28

  Ash Parrish

  Final Fantasy XVI casts dark for a grittier RPG

  Image: Square Enix

  There’s a lot riding on Final Fantasy XVI. Its predecessor, Final Fantasy XV, didn’t do so hot, critically speaking. And with FFXVI, the team at Square Enix is trying to right the ship by making a Final Fantasy that has a broader appeal. 

  To do that, the development team nixed some elements that have become synonymous with Final Fantasy. The static, turn-based combat system is out, in favor of a more fluid, action-oriented system filled with swift and flashy melee strikes, powerful and splashy-looking spells, and acrobatic dodging. 

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• Dec 9, 2022

  Ash Parrish

  Naoki Yoshida presents a new Final Fantasy XVI trailer at The Game Awards

  Image: Square Enix

  To cap-off the barrage of announcements and trailers unleashed during The Game Awards was a new trailer and release date for the latest single-player installment of the Final Fantasy series. Game director Naoki Yoshida made his first ever appearance at The Game Awards to present Final Fantasy XVI’s newest trailer and shared the game’s release date — June 22nd.

  The Revenge trailer was very short but very bloody, revisiting one of the first moments of Final Fantasy XVI fans got to see. Because of all the blood, the trailer’s been slapped with a content warning meaning you’ll have to go to YouTube to watch.

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• Oct 20, 2022

  Ash Parrish

  Final Fantasy XVI’s new trailer has huge monsters and even bigger crystals

  Image: Square Enix

  A slightly embarrassing leak from IGN Southeast Asia tipped fans off that a new Final Fantasy XVI trailer might be dropping today, and here it is. The four-minute-long trailer titled “Ambition” doesn’t reveal too much new information regarding the next entry in the 35-year-old series, but hot damn, does it look cool. It is bloodier than your typical Final Fantasy fare, so you’ll have to watch it on YouTube.

  The trailer is essentially a lore dump, priming fans with all the proper noun information on the peoples, places, and things we’ll see yet won’t remember until well into the game’s hopefully 60-plus hour runtime. (A girl can hope, right?) The trailer retreads most of the same information shared in The Verge’s interview with game director Naoki Yoshida earlier in the year.

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• Jun 23, 2022

  Ash Parrish

  Epic monster battles will be at the heart of Final Fantasy XVI

  Image: Square Enix

  The thing Naoki Yoshida is most excited about in Final Fantasy XVI is the eikon battles. 

  In speaking to The Verge, Yoshida, the game’s director, talked about how earth-shattering, knock-down, drag-out fights between some of the franchise’s most prominent and popular monsters featured heavily in this latest single-player, non-remake entry in the 35-year-old JRPG series. 

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• Jun 3, 2022

  Ash Parrish

  Everything we learned from Final Fantasy XVI’s new trailer

  Square Enix

  Yesterday, Sony and Square Enix blessed us with the biggest chunk of Final Fantasy XVI news yet during the State of Play event. Square Enix released not only a new trailer but also a new blog and updates to the official Final Fantasy XVI website that has established a nice foundation upon which we can start building an idea of what this game is about and what we can expect.

  Despite the number, Final Fantasy XVI is not the 16th entry in the series; it’s not even the 16th single-player mainline entry, either (thanks to FFXIII’s sequels and the FFVII Remake). There are a million and a half Final Fantasy games, far too many to count. This is simply the one that comes after the one with Noctis and his bro-dtrip.

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• Jun 2, 2022

  Ash Parrish

  Final Fantasy XVI is coming summer 2023

  If you’re a Final Fantasy fan, today’s State of Play is for you. Today, Square Enix has revealed a bit more information about Final Fantasy XVI.

  In the new trailer, we get our first glimpse of combat, which features high-speed real-time action that looks reminiscent of what Cloud and the gang get up to in Final Fantasy VII Remake. The trailer also features more of the mysterious Eikons, powerful monsters that resemble the summons of Final Fantasies of yore and seem to reside in human controllers called Dominants. It seems like befriending or fighting these Dominants will be at the heart of the game’s story.

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• Dec 27, 2021

  Chaim Gartenberg

  Final Fantasy XVI’s next big reveal won’t come until spring 2022 after six months of COVID-19 delays

  Final Fantasy XVI is the latest game to be hit by COVID-related development delays, with the game’s producer Naoki Yoshida announcing in a letter posted to Twitter that work on the upcoming PlayStation 5 RPG has been set back by about six months. Furthermore, Yoshida announced that the next major reveal for the upcoming title — originally promised for sometime in 2021 — is now being pushed out to sometime in spring 2022.

  It’s not too surprising that Final Fantasy XVI has been hit by delays. As the first flagship Final Fantasy game for a next-generation console, the development process is a massive effort spanning development teams around the world. “In an effort to offset the effects of COVID-19, we’ve had to decentralize that workforce by permitting staff to tackle their assignments from home,” Yoshida’s letter explains. “This has unfortunately hampered communication from the Tokyo office, which, in turn, has led to delays in — or in extreme cases, cancellations of — asset deliveries from our outsource partners.”

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• Sep 16, 2020

  Megan Farokhmanesh

  Final Fantasy XVI is coming to PS5, watch the first trailer

  

  Final Fantasy is heading to the PlayStation 5 with a new entry, Final Fantaxy XVI. The news was announced today during Sony’s console event with a brief teaser.

  The trailer posted today teases a world in which “The legacy of the crystals has shaped our history for long enough” as part of the upcoming action RPG. Alongside its new fantasy setting, iconic figures from the series, from Chocobos to summons like Shiva, can be seen throughout. In a post from on the PlayStation Blog, producer Naoki Yoshida said the next big reveal for the game would take place in 2021.

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