Final Fantasy 16’s Visuals are Only Possible Thanks to PS5’s Memory and SSD, Director Says

Despite reports to the contrary, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 16 is exclusive to PS5 (at least for six months), and much has been said about how its visual fidelity is only possible on PS5. Director Hiroshi Takai spoke to PlayStation Blog and once again touched on the console and its power.

When asked about his first impressions of the hardware, Takai said, “The two main things that struck me were the size of the memory and the speed of the SSD. I’ve worked with a lot of different hardware over the years, and many have failed to strike the right balance between the capabilities of the hardware and the size of the memory.

“However, the PS5 is different – it comes with enough memory installed to take full advantage of the hardware. As for the SSD, as we were building the game, I was simply blown away by how fast it was.”

As for how the development team took advantage of the console’s hardware, he said, “Naturally, we wanted the graphics to be the best that they could be, so we put a lot of focus on the fine details of the character and environmental models, as well as the quality of the lighting and the shadows, to really make them shine.

“It’s really resource-intensive just to render these models on screen, and the lighting and shadow effects are then layered on top of that. We’re only able to do this thanks to the size of the PS5’s memory. Clive, the protagonist of FF16, can unleash a wide range of attacks, and the animations and effects for them can all fit in the memory, too.

Of course, going from the cutscenes to gameplay and back is only possible thanks to the SSD (which Takai had praised last year, as well). “The way that the game seamlessly flows between resource-intensive gameplay to equally intensive cutscenes and back again wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the speed of the SSD.”

The console’s DualSense controller is also supported, using the adaptive triggers when opening heavy doors or lifting portcullises, for “that feeling of effort and resistance. They’re also used when riding chocobos. The haptic feedback can produce extremely subtle vibrations, which we use to create a heightened feeling of presence in cutscenes. We converted the sound effects used in each scene into haptic data, which let us portray details that we’ve never been able to before, like the movements of the air.”

Final Fantasy 16 releases on June 22nd for PS5 and lots of new gameplay is available, showcasing combat, exploration and more. You can also check out the latest screenshots below. The action RPG will offer two graphics modes at launch – 4K/30 FPS and 1440p/60 FPS.