The current generation of consoles is over two years old, and the vast majority of developers are still choosing to release their games as cross-gen titles, though we are now at a point where more and more major releases are launching exclusively for current-gen hardware. One of the biggest upcoming releases of the year, Final Fantasy 16, is doing the same, but why exactly did Square Enix made the decision, especially given the magnitude of the release and the massive player base of last-gen systems that the company is forgoing?
Speaking recently with IGN, Final Fantasy 16’s developers touched on the topic, talking about how the PS5’s much more powerful hardware is enabling the development team to pull off certain technical aspects of the experience that wouldn’t have been possible if older and less powerful consoles also had to be taken into account.
“While you’re battling Ifrit and Garuda and having that big battle [in the hands-on demo], in the background, the PS5 is loading the next scene,” producer Naoki Yoshida explained. “It’s getting ready, so we can seamlessly move into it.”
Combat director Ryoto Suzuki chimed in on the topic as well, explaining that if not for the PS5’s memory and SSD speed, the game would still very much be in the thick of development, as opposed to being in the final stages of production and on track to launch in June as it is now.
“You are graphically representing the fists and the claws and the wings [of the Eikon abilities] and all in real time and all in these beautiful graphics and having all of these different options,” Suzuki said. “But to be able to do all of those seamlessly without any low times is possible because of the power of the PlayStation 5.
“If we didn’t have the memory that the PlayStation 5 has, and also the transfer speed of the SSD that the PlayStation 5 has, we would still be in development right now.”
Of course, whether or not Final Fantasy 16 also eventually ends up coming to other platforms remains to be seen, though Yoshida has said that a PC version, at the very least, is very much on the cards, even though it might not be ready for a while after the PS5 version’s launch.
Final Fantasy 16 is out on June 22, and will be receiving demo roughly a couple of weeks before launch.