While looking at Final Fantasy 16, Square Enix’s upcoming epic RPG, it’s easy to see influences from various other titles. Producer Naoki Yoshida spoke about taking inspiration from some “triple-A open-world RPGs” (though the game isn’t open-world). Combat also has some Devil May Cry influences thrown in with Capcom designer Ryota Suzuki working as battle director.
However, it seems that the team is receiving help from the Kingdom Hearts team for combat. “The Kingdom Hearts team at Square Enix has been especially helpful in contributing to those real-time combat and boss battles. It can be said that the battles in Final Fantasy 16 are in some ways a culmination of the company’s past experiences,” said Yoshida to The Washington Post.
Further details on combat will be revealed later. It’s confirmed that there will be AI-controlled party members. It also seems that Clive will have a “faithful buddy” to issue commands to in combat (which could indicate the role of Torgal, the wolf-pup from the first trailer).
While Yoshida said that more information on the story and setting would be revealed this Fall, he told Game Informer that there would also be a new trailer for the same. “In that trailer, we hope to concentrate a little bit more on the world and the lore and the storyline, and hopefully bring a little bit more of that information to players, showing what the story is going to be like, what the narrative is going to be like, and how that’s going to fit into the world.”
Releasing in Summer 2023, Final Fantasy 16 is in development exclusively for PS5. Stay tuned for more information later in the coming months.