Let’s get one of the most important things out of the way. The PC port of Final Fantasy 16 is downright fantastic. It provides plenty of graphical options to tinker with, and manages to play surprisingly well with mouse and keyboard controls. I would still, however, recommend using a controller to play, since Final Fantasy 16 is a pretty fast-paced game and the frantic action might end up being an easy to ruin your mouse’s switches.

Running the game on a mid to high ranged PC—AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB of DDR5 6000 MHz RAM and an AMD Radeon 7800 XT—was effortless with every setting pumped up to its highest setting. Enabling AMD’s FSR 3.1 setting running at native resolution also meant that I was able to get well over 100 frames per second while playing at a resolution of 1440p.

Surprisingly, the game’s framerates did occasionally dip down to the high 60s, but the occurrence was so rare that it indicates that the dip was the result of the game loading in more large assets in the background. Interestingly, despite running its cutscenes at 30 frames per second, the game was able to seamlessly transition between gameplay and cutscene without much in the way of drastic or dips in frame rates.

"The PC port of Final Fantasy 16 is downright fantastic."

With all of that out of the way, it’s also worth talking about the visuals in the PC release of Final Fantasy 16. While it was already an incredible-looking game back on the PS5 release, the PC release feels like players that have the systems to handle it can get the best of both worlds—gorgeous visuals thanks to the generally faster hardware on modern gaming PCs, as well as stable high frame rates, allowing for the action gameplay to really shine through thanks to responsive controls.

The visuals especially shine through when some of Final Fantasy 16’s several set pieces in the form of the Eikon battles come into play. Right from the first one you get at the end of the prologue where Phoenix faces off against Ifrit, the sense of scale provided by these set pieces is rivaled only by either some of the older action games. These battles are also the venue for some of the most interesting music. While a lot of fights feature the iconic orchestral music that the Final Fantasy 16 is known and loved for, special mention has to go out for tracks like Do or Die from the Titan fight, and Catacecaumene from the Typhon fight.

These more eclectic tracks are joined by fantastic orchestral pieces like the theme song Land of Eikons, which blends elements of modern orchestral music with elements of classic RPGs, and the bombastic track Away acts as the theme for one of the game’s earlier set pieces.

"The visuals especially shine through when some of Final Fantasy 16’s several set pieces in the form of the Eikon battles come into play."

Final Fantasy 16 also manages to have the darkest general tone and setting of any of the games in the genre and manages to kick things off with what might just be one of the greatest prologues of any game out there. While the player is thrust into gameplay almost immediately with the epic battle between Phoenix and Ifrit playing out, eventually, protagonist Clive Rosfield is introduced, and through flashbacks, we get a more complete picture of what went down 13 years ago, which ultimately led to a young Clive being one of the only survivors of a military operation, betrayed by his mother, and sold off into slavery.

Slavery is a pretty major theme throughout Final Fantasy 16, and much of the game’s earlier chapters revolves around exploring the world, how it treats the people that it has branded as slaves—referred to as Bearers—and how the protagonists can go about changing this fact. Along the way, the vibrant cast of characters—Clive, Cid, Jill and Torgal—must also figure out how they can stop the blight that is slowly spreading throughout the land of Valisthea, making the land uninhabitable since the soil can’t support life for plants and animals, and magic doesn’t work in blighted areas.

Final Fantasy 16’s story is just as grand and bombastic as the best of the genre might have to offer, and the cast of protagonists will travel all over the world to complete their objectives, which can range from sparking rebellion and destroying the giant Mothercrystals that are believed to fuel the magic in the area, to even taking part in some political intrigue here and there. Considering the game’s massive cast of characters, one of its best features is also the Active Time Lore window, which basically allows players to check out how different characters are related to each other, why they might hate each other, and what their motivations might be. The feature can also be used mid-cutscene, just in case you forget who the characters currently in the scene might be.

"One of its best features is also the Active Time Lore window"

The only real downside in Final Fantasy 16’s storyline is that it suffers from some pacing problems. While the first and final acts are excellently done, there is a middle part where the game’s story comes grinding to a halt. While this does offer some respite, since this part of the story, which revolves around building an airship, after the rather high-octane parts it comes on the heels of, the series of quests you have to do are quite bland, often being little more than fetch quests, and definitely go on for too long. Once you get over this 5-7 hour hump, however, things quickly pick back up again as Clive and Co. set their sights on the Mothercrystal at the capital of the Sanbreque empire.

The story also suffers by focusing almost exclusively on Clive. While he is the protagonist of the game, the lack of a real party system means that the supporting cast and crew get little to no screen time, and even pivotal characters like Jill feel rather underdeveloped. This also applies to the villains, with characters like Annabella and Benedikta, while fantastic antagonists in their own rights, feeling quite wasted since they just don’t appear in the story as often as they should have.

All this aside, Final Fantasy 16 is still a fantastic game, and the PC release now means that more players will get a chance to experience one of the most captivating, dark, and outwardly political stories in the genre. Sure, its action-based gameplay might look like it demands too much from you, but the gameplay itself has been tuned so finely that both newcomers to the genre, as well as experienced action players will find something to enjoy.

This game was reviewed on PC.

It is worth noting that Final Fantasy 16 was released exclusively on the PS5, and while a PC port is currently in the works, the game hasn’t yet been released on any other platform. This likely had quite a bit to do with the game failing to hit Square Enix’s sales expectations.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida recently spoke about games he had worked on, where he also revealed that he was impressed that Square Enix greenlit the required budget for Final Fantasy 16‘s high development costs.

Final Fantasy 16 was released back in June 2023. Since then, the game has seen the release of two expansions in the form of Echoes of the Fallen, and The Rising Tide. For more details, check out our reviews of the base game, Echoes of the Fallen, and The Rising Tide.

As you can expect from the duo, quite a bit of the time they spent working together revolves around Final Fantasy 14. The two also talk about other games, including The Portopia Serial Murder Case, Wingman, Final Fantasy 5, and Dragon Quest 3.

In the video, Yoshida also goes on to talk about Final Fantasy 16‘s development, stating that he was proud of the concept and story that the studio came up with.

“Of course, while we were making the game, we’d go through twists and turns, but I think we did well to really stay true to our course,” says Yoshida. “It might sound strange coming from my position, but I really admire the team. I’m proud of them for seeing it through and creating the game to its fullest.”

Yoshida also reveals that he was impressed by Square Enix approving Final Fantasy 16‘s development costs.

“I can’t say how much, but I have to hand it to them that we were allowed to spend this much,” he says. “As such, I do feel a little pressure in terms of wanting to pay it back, but it really was incredible.”

Final Fantasy 16 was released on PS5 last year. Since then, the game has seen the release of two DLCs—Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide. A PC port of Final Fantasy 16 is also currently in the works.

What makes the benchmark tool for Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail interesting, however, is the fact that the expansion is bringing a major graphics update to the game. This is essentially the first time that players will be able to tinker around with the game’s options with the new graphical update.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail is currently available for pre-order, and will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Players that pre-order will get early access to the game on June 28, ahead of its official July 2 release date.

To access content from Dawntrail, Final Fantasy 14 players will have to play through the story of the base game, all the way through the most recent story content released for the Endwalker expansion. Dawntrail will bring with it a host of new content, including new story, dungeons, raids, and more.

With this feature, we take a look at what has changed with this new chapter from a technical perspective. Right from the game engine being used to the rendering pipeline being utilized and the performance, we will be deciphering each element of the experience on the PS5.

What Has Changed From Final Fantasy 7 Remake?

Final Fantasy 7 Remake marked a big change from Final Fantasy 15 because instead of utilizing its proprietary game engines, the developer utilized Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 to power its reimagined rendition of Midgard. Interestingly though, the developer switched to its proprietary tools once again for the latest Final Fantasy 16.

With Rebirth, the developer is retreading the same steps as Remake – and still continuing to work off Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 once again. But now that the developer has a much more powerful platform to work on with the PS5, Rebirth definitely looks better than what came before. Keep in mind that it’s an iterative upgrade which is to be expected given that both are utilizing the same base feature sets, but some effort has been made to smooth out criticisms that were laid with the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Highly detailed character models and strong post-processing effects continue to be a strong suit for Final Fantasy 7’s rendering pipeline, but issues with inconsistent level of quality in environmental assets continue to persist in this generation as well. Lighting and reflections also look good at times. Still, the developer seems to have missed the opportunity to utilize newer techniques to its full capacity which we will be discussing in detail in later sections of the feature.

As mentioned previously, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth pays a ton of attention to its character models – right from the skin meshes to the clothes they don and even how the hair looks in action. The merits of the first game carry over to Rebirth – and character models boast some really high polycounts. Skin meshes are extremely detailed, and while there is some inherent softness to the skin of characters like Cloud or Sephiroth, that has more to do with the artistic direction as opposed to visual fidelity.

The clothes that the characters don are all composed of high quality physically based materials, and they react appropriately to light depending on their respective properties. The texture work is great and you can zoom in to really appreciate the level of effort gone into creating these characters.

The hair rendering department seems to have received a significant upgrade, with individual strands of hair having markedly more polycounts than what we have seen in Final Fantasy 7 Remake – which helps in resolving the artifacts that could be seen along the edges of characters’ hair in the first game.

Open-World

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth marks a significant change with its shift to an open-world structure, so how has the rendering pipeline changed to account for world streaming and rapid loading of assets? Well, we are afraid that the developer hasn’t really changed much of what’s running under the hood – but instead took a bet on the increased horsepower of the current-gen consoles to help with that stuff. It certainly works without any major issues, but it’s here where we get to see most of the issues carried over from Remake to Rebirth.

Environments do generally look good at scale. You can see giant mountains, sprawling grasslands, and stone structures out in the distance, and it’s all pretty magnificent on a macro level. On a micro level, however, things remain quite inconsistent. Certain textures do look great with high polycounts and appropriate geometric complexity, but others feel lacking in comparison.

Take a look at the city section where you make your way past guards by climbing your way across high beams and roofs, and see how the trees look quite weird with their primitive-looking branches and shoddy textures and compare that to the ground which has detailed cobblestones with proper geometric depth. The inconsistent texture quality continues to be an issue with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, though it’s not of the same severity as it was in Remake.

World streaming works well enough for the most part, and as mentioned previously – the draw distance is definitely impressive. The level of detail swapping and asset load times are fast enough, but we did notice a couple of instances of pop-in during our tests. Certain open world sections are chock full of foliage with several trees peppering the landscape, but they don’t really react to your presence and everyone can just awkwardly clip through the foliage which can feel a bit weird.

The lighting pipeline seems to be mostly unchanged from Remake, and Rebirth is probably utilizing a mixture of baked and dynamic lights to illuminate its environments. Certain indoor scenes look really good with bounce lighting being implemented through the baked solution, but the same level of care and attention hasn’t gone into all scenes. This is also partly due to how the dynamic light functions in conjunction with the baked lighting – which produces results that are convincing enough but nothing really impressive.

As for the reflections, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth seems to be making use of high quality reflections. Notice how light is reflected from water puddles and glassy window panes, and how it perfectly shifts as you change the target perspective. It’s not immediately obvious since the usage is pretty limited, and we would have loved to see it being used as a global illumination solution which could probably have smoothed out the previously mentioned inconsistent lighting issues.

As mentioned previously, Unreal Engine 4 has a really strong post-processing pipeline – and the developer has made good use of those features to create a strong suite of effects that really shine in the final product. Motion blur and depth of field are an important part of the game’s presentation, and it all looks really crisp with a quality per-object implementation and little to no artifacts along the edges of focus objects.

Smoke volumes are also extensively used in cinematics and gameplay environments, and they look really good with thick smoke volumes and impressively detailed meshes that flow in a realistic fashion. Particle effects are also an equally important part of the post processing pipeline, and FF7 Rebirth’s combat sections never shy from displaying their high-quality alpha particles, plenty of sparks, and fire volumes with every spell you cast in the heat of battle.

PS5 Graphics Modes And Load Times

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth offers two distinct graphical modes for players to choose from, a Fidelity mode which operates at a 4K resolution with a frame rate target of 30fps. Then there’s a performance mode that drops the resolution down from 4K to a dynamic 4K and instead bumps the frame rate to 60fps. There isn’t much difference in terms of the rendering pipeline itself, but the performance mode seems to reduce most of the graphical effects which is quite evident if you compare the two modes side by side. For comparison’s sake, the PS4 Pro version of Remake ran at 30 FPS by utilizing dynamic resolution scaling with a peak resolution of 2880 x 1620.

Asset quality takes a slight hit in the performance mode, and so does draw distance. Objects far away from the camera are rendered at a fraction of the polygon budget as their fidelity counterparts. Interestingly though, ray-traced reflections on certain surfaces seem to be intact across both graphical modes – but that’s difficult to ascertain given the limited usage of the technique itself.

In terms of performance, the Fidelity mode does a good job of sticking to its frame rate target. There are some minor slowdowns, but by and large performance is generally fine across the board with minor drops here and there. Performance mode also fares the same, but the game seems to work pretty well across both graphical modes during our tests. 

Continuing our tests on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, we have the loading times. Loading up a save takes just about 3 to 4 seconds, which is extremely impressive especially when you compare that to the load times on Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Suffice it to say, the developer has done a really good job of optimizing the game to take advantage of the PS5’s SSD. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth might not have been a really big change over what came before in a technical sense – but it definitely puts the effort to iron out the issues that were put forth in Remake. Not to say that there aren’t any quirks with the experience, but Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a largely good-looking game that puts the Unreal Engine 4 to great use and renders its environments without dropping much frames.

“Given that this is…Fan Fest, you’re probably expecting us to announce the release date of Dawntrail,” he said (transcription via PC Gamer). “Unfortunately, though we do have an internal date that we are targeting, we are adjusting the schedule to ensure it’s fine-tuned as much as it possibly can be before announcing, so we will not be sharing that today.”

As for why the team is taking this approach, it’s to avoid another incident like Endwalker. The pivotal expansion was set to launch on November 23rd, 2021, but ended up delayed to December 7th.

“If you’re wondering why, well, it’s because, as you know, for Endwalker, for the very first time in my career, we had to delay the release. We don’t want that to happen again, even if it’s just a few weeks. So we are taking great care to make sure our schedule is on track before announcing, but we will get you that info as soon as we can.”

Yoshida also reaffirmed that it will launch this Summer, not the “Square Enix time” version of the same. “We said for [Final Fantasy] 16 we were gonna release it in Summer, and it came out in June. We will not be releasing on Square Enix time. We will be releasing on [Final Fantasy] 14 time, which means properly in Summer.” Of course, that could still fall anywhere between May 1st and September 23rd, depending on the season type.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail sees players venturing to Tural, a continent dubbed the New World, and utilizing new Jobs like the Viper and Pictomancer (the Beastmaster is due later). Check out the full trailer, and how the new areas and Dungeons look here.

Shades of the Fallen from Final Fantasy 16? Who can say, but the technological motif is pretty similar. There’s also Heritage Found, overflowing with thunderclouds and pulsing lightning throughout the day. Players will also explore several tropical-looking locations and thick jungles.

A separate trailer also highlights the new Dungeons. Some are in ancient underground temples, but at least two appear to be set in Solution Nine and Heritage Found (if not their regions). We’ll have to wait for more details to know for sure.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail launches this Summer for PS4, PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S. Check out the full trailer here.

The quest involves teaming with Clive Rosfield, Final Fantasy 16’s protagonist, for the “The Path Infernal” quest. It sees players battling Ifrit with rewards like a Torgal mount and the wolf’s pup form as a minion. Players can also seemingly use some of Clive’s skills, like Rising Phoenix, and don his mid-game outfit.

As for Final Fantasy 16 players, the next paid expansion for the action RPG, The Rising Tide, goes live this Spring. It focuses on the “mystery of Leviathan” and will add new Eikonic Skills. Unlike Echoes of the Fallen (check out our review), it offers ten hours of gameplay. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months.

https://twitter.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/1743829378600169760

The Pictomancer is a magical ranged DPS, fighting with a brush weapon and easel, “painting” different attacks. Some of them have elemental properties, dealing Fire, Ice and Thunder damage, but can also bring out a Moogle to fire a beam. The mix of paint splotches and bright colors fits well with the new theme song for the expansion.

The Female Hrothgar’s trailer focuses more on showcasing their animations while walking, running and jumping, in addition to the facial expressions. It remains to be seen if their attribute modifiers are similar to the Male Hrothgar.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail launches this Summer and will be available for PS4, PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S. For those getting into the MMO for the first time, the free trial now includes the Stormblood expansion. Head here for more details.

https://twitter.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/1743820266931884329

Dawntrail adds several new areas for players to explore and new enemies to fight, including the Eliminator, Barreltender and Valigarmanda. It also includes Dungeons, a new Raid series called The Arcadion and Echoes of Vana’diel, a new Alliance Raid series. Players can also expect new Trials, Field Operations and Variant Dungeons, and updates to the Gold Saucer and the visuals.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail launches in Summer 2024 for PS4, PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S. The Xbox version will go live in Spring 2024, with an open beta going live with patch 6.5X. Stay tuned for more details on an exact date for the expansion in the coming months.