Thanks to a recent round of hands-on previews by a number of media outlets, a bevy of new details have emerged on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 16, one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year. With the hype and excitement surrounding the RPG continuing to gather momentum in the lead up to its launch in a few months’ time in June, here, we’ll be going over a few key new details that you should know about.
ACTION-FOCUSED COMBAT
Final Fantasy as a series has never shied away from experimenting with its combat systems, and Final Fantasy 16, too, is about to do that. While the series has, of course, flirted with action-oriented combat systems, it has always had at least a hint of turn-based or pause and play mechanics. With FF16, however, the series is going completely action-based with its combat. Everything – and we mean everything – will play out in real time, with a focus on slashes and hacks, dodges and blocks, and of course, utilizing bombastic abilities, with protagonist Clive being the only character players will be able to take control of during the heat of battle- which is another first for the series as far as its mainline games are concerned.
COMBAT DETAILS
Moment to moment gameplay in Final Fantasy 16’s combat will entail basic actions that you’d expect to see in any action-focused game. Clive will be able to use his sword as well as his magic attacks, both of which can also be charged up to deal greater damage, while players will also be able to unleash counters by pulling off a block against an incoming attack at the last possible movement. Beyond that, Eikon abilities will also play a massive role. As Clive meets more Eikons throughout his journey, he’ll learn new abilities from each of them, with each Eikon tied to a specific element or type of ability- so Phoenix, for instance, will bestow fire abilities, while Garuda will enable wind attacks. Players will be able to swap between those freely during combat, and using them in conjunction with melee attacks will also be key to the flow of combat.
PROGRESSION AND CUSTOMIZATION
This is, of course, an RPG, which means there’s going to be plenty of expansive progression and customization mechanics to dive into as well. So what exactly can players expect on this front? For starters, players will be able to equip a variety of weapons, armour pieces, and accessories, while beyond that, there will be plenty of upgrade options as well. All of Clive’s standard melee moves and each of his Eikons (and, in turn, the abilities they come with) will have their own unique upgrade trees, allowing players to not only unlock new attacks, but also power up ones that have already been unlocked.
EXPLORATION
Square Enix confirmed some time back that Final Fantasy 16 is not going to be an open world game, so what exactly should we expect where its exploration aspects are concerned? Structurally, it will see players moving from one location to the next, many of which will be linear, but Square Enix says there will be plenty of room for exploration as well. While certain areas and dungeons will be linear and won’t feature an awful lot of branching paths, other areas will be much more expansive and offer wider playing areas.
DIFFICULTY
Final Fantasy 16 is taking a rather interesting approach to difficulty, in that it’s only going to have a single default difficulty settings, with no other options being available. Instead, players will be able to equip certain in-game accessories, known as Timely accessories, which will enable modes- though these are not going to be your traditional difficulty modes either. You’ll be able to equip up to two of these at a time to make certain combat actions easier- like makes dodges automatic, or turning multi-input combos into single-button actions. The game will also feature two modes that will tie into this- Story Focus mode will equip these automatically from the get go, but that won’t be the case in Action Focus mode.
NEW GAME PLUS
Most games these days are expected to feature a New Game Plus option, and that will, as you’d expect, also be available in Final Fantasy 16. What exactly will it entail though? According to Square Enix, those looking for a more challenging experience will want to dive into New Game Plus Mode. In addition to making enemies much more difficult, it will also remix the placements of enemies. On top of that, New Game Plus will also bring entirely new battles that won’t be present in the base experience.
LEVERAGING THE PS5 HARDWARE
Final Fantasy 16 is launching as a PS5 exclusive, and it seems like Square Enix is looking to leverage the current-gen console’s hardware capabilities in a variety of ways. For instance, transitions between battles, exploration, and cutscenes will be entirely seamless, with no load screens to bother you or eat up valuable seconds- though whether the entire experience will be completely devoid of loading remains to be seen. Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, you can also expect implementation of the DualSense’s haptic feedback. Speaking to the PlayStation Blog, director Hiroshi Takai said, “In terms of the haptic feedback, we take the sound effect data from our cutscenes and transfer it into vibration data. While an explosion will obviously create a big vibration, it’s the smaller sounds and subtle variations in vibration that really stood out to us. It’s like going from one generation of controllers to the next.”
GRAPHICS MODES
As you’d expect, Final Fantasy 16 will also launch with multiple graphics modes. Two options will be available to players- Performance Mode will see the game running at 4K, while there will also be a Frame Rate Mode that will prioritize frame rate over resolution. What exactly the frame rate will be in either of the two modes hasn’t yet been revealed, but presumably, Frame Rate mode will allow for 60 FPS gameplay.
DEMO
Square Enix has made it something of a habit of releasing demos of its games shortly prior to release, and it will be doing that with Final Fantasy 16 as well. Speaking with Famitsu, producer Naoki Yoshida confirmed that a demo of the game will release about two weeks before its release, which should be sometime in mid-June. It will allow players to experience the beginning of the story, though exactly how long the demo will be obviously hasn’t been confirmed yet. Most importantly, players will also be able to carry over their save data from the demo into the full game to continue playing it from where the demo ends.
PC VERSION
There’s been plenty of confusion over whether or not Final Fantasy 16 will eventually also launch for PC thanks to mixed messaging for Square Enix, but the company has provided some clarity on that front. Speaking with PlayStation Blog Japan, Yoshida revealed that a PC version is indeed on the cards- though don’t expect it to launch shortly after the PS5 version. Even though the game has a timed PS5 exclusivity window of six months, Yoshida has said the PC version will not launch six months after the PS5 version. Optimizing a PC version of the game will take much longer- though exactly how long that will be remains to be seen.