Final Fantasy 16: the end of development is getting closer and closer

Development of Final Fantasy 16 is approximately 95% complete.

On the occasion of the new media tour for Final Fantasy 16, producer Naoki Yoshida once again confirmed in a column for the Japanese magazine Famitsu that development is coming to an end very soon and an unexpected delay is unlikely.:

Because I’ve become so accustomed to the online game development environment over the past few years, I was a bit surprised at how quickly we had to go gold. If you look at the production of physical discs, shipping them all over the world… it all takes months of preparation after reaching gold status. So when we say that development is 95% complete, some might say that it needs to be released immediately, but that’s the reality of the situation…

『#Ff16』 スタッフ インタビュー。 プロデューサーティブ ディレクター ディレクター ディレクター訊く

・裏テーマは“自己肯定”
・開発状況は9割5分。年内に発売日を発表予定#FFXVI
https://t.co/R63HmYSNkb pic.twitter.com/W 2emfNEc

— ファミ通.com (@famitsu) November 4, 2022

Same story with Hiroshi Takai, who adds that the Creative Business Unit III teams have been doing everything they can to ensure the best experience ever since it launched:

Right now we are playing the game day after day, fixing issues and fixing some performance and rendering issues. This is followed by bug fixes.

Final Fantasy 16 release date to be announced before the end of the year

After a vague “summer 2023″for Final Fantasy 16 on PS5, Japanese publisher Square Enix should be more specific in a few weeks:

We plan to release even more information before the end of the year, so I think we can tell you a release date then. It won’t be later than summer, so don’t worry.

Final Fantasy 16 will be playable in pre-release demo

Game director Hiroshi Takai also spoke to several media outlets such as 4Gamer, Dengeki, IGN, and EveryEye about the lifespan of Final Fantasy 16. The main adventure is estimated at 35-40 hours without side quests or other additional content. Otherwise, it will take at least 70 hours. Please note that difficulty lovers will be able to restart the game with enhanced enemies through the New Game+ mode. It was also said by Naoki Yoshida that a playable demo of Final Fantasy 16 would be planned sometime next year to get early feedback from players (a concept increasingly repeated at Square Enix). right time.

Creative differences between Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy 16

On the PlayStation Blog, Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, Localization Director for Final Fantasy 16, reflected on writing this new opus:

First of all, the Warrior of Light from FFXIV was a silent protagonist, which greatly influenced the writing of the scenes. As a result, in most cutscenes in FFXIV, OTHER characters were talking to YOU. Almost exclusively, NPCs had to carry out the difficult task of conveying important information. In FF16, Clive is actively involved in all conversations. So we can pass information to the player in a completely different way. In this sense, the videos are much more dynamic. In addition, the implementation of face capture in many scenes gave us the opportunity to convey emotions and feelings through facial expressions, and not through dialogue. Differences in video game genres also had a big impact on our approach. In an MMO like XIV, the goal was to create a story that could last more than two years with the help of add-ons. In a single game, the narrative approach should be more compact and streamlined. When a single game is all about action, as opposed to the slower traditional RPG, the pace of the story becomes twice as important. Political intrigues can be exciting, but they often turn out to be complex and require lengthy explanations that can slow things down. If we rely too much on plot and subtlety, we run the risk of losing sight of the purpose of a thing. As a result, the game may suffer. When we create interactive content, our goal is to strike a good balance. Yoshida-san’s internal design concept for Final Fantasy 16 reminds me of a roller coaster, a mixture of slow climbs followed by a heartbreaking free fall! It’s really a great way to describe,