Final Fantasy XVI is getting a day-one patch, after all. You might remember that Square Enix originally didn’t want to release one, expressing confidence in its final build of the game, although they did say it wasn’t a final decision.
Well, during yesterday’s Final Fantasy XVI launch live stream, the developers revealed there will be one, mainly to address performance. Here’s the full overview of the fixes:
- Fix a control flag issue which can make progress impossible under very specific circumstances
- Fix an issue wherein the game could close unexpectedly under very specific circumstances
- Optimize performance in several places
- Fix some minor text errors
It’s worth noting that it won’t be a mandatory update. Also, Square Enix said it will be a relatively small download, weighing around 300MB.
The performance of Final Fantasy XVI looked a bit problematic even in the free demo released on PlayStation 5. Beyond addressing the optimization with the day-one patch, the developers also discussed other feedback received after the release of the demo.
Another common complaint is that the demo featured a lot of the cutscenes, to which producer Naoki Yoshida replied:
I agree, there are a lot of cutscenes. It’s taken from the first act of the story, so there’s more scene-setting than later in the game. It will gradually become more like the Eikon Challenge section in general. But there will still be long scenes at crucial points in the story. Still, we believe the story we’re telling is a compelling one, and once it grips you, you won’t worry about the length of the scenes.
Japanese players complained about lip synchronization being off, and Square Enix said it was done only for the English language, as it would have otherwise been too much to work. They tried to use AI to adjust lip synchronization in Japanese, but its results weren’t satisfactory. The developers encouraged players to play Final Fantasy XVi using English voices and their native language’s subtitles.
Square Enix is also looking into ways to adjust motion blur via a dedicated setting or turn it off entirely. Additional upcoming options may include camera movement speed and the ability to disable auto-follow.
The developers also discussed the streamlining of the demo. That part of Final Fantasy XVI is focused on set-piece battles, but it will open up later, offering explorable areas. That’s also why there’s no mini-map, as the team decided they’d rather have players looking at the world than looking at the mini-map. Still, a map will be accessible in certain locations by clicking the touchpad.
Final Fantasy XVI launches on June 22nd for PlayStation 5. Check out our roundup article here and stay tuned for our full review early next week!
