As part of the recent Final Fantasy XVI media blowout, we discovered several interesting tidbits of information on the new mainline installment of the popular RPG franchise. We learned why the game is a PlayStation 5 exclusive, for example, and that while a PC version may well appear, it won’t be until quite some time after the launch on Sony’s console.
In the roundtable interview that Wccftech participated in, Game Director Hiroshi Takai also shared some insights on how the game actually works. According to Takai-san, it is fairly similar to the God of War reboot when it comes to the balancing of action and RPG elements.
I don’t think that, or at least it wasn’t our intent, to drift away too far from what the core series brings. We get asked by a lot of media about what we think constitutes a Final Fantasy game. I think that, for me, the one thing is how each game in the series always tries to do something new and challenge something one of the Final Fantasies in the past had done to bring something new to the series. With Final Fantasy XVI, our challenge was to go full action and have these Eikon-vs-Eikon battles. Because this change is so big, that’s what sticks out to players and they feel like it’s bigger than it actually is.
Again, up until now especially with this event, we’ve been putting a lot of focus on the action aspects of the game, but what we have here is an action RPG. Being Square-Enix, we put a lot of pride into our RPG elements. Those RPG elements, while we haven’t talked about them much, do exist in the game; we do have side quests and weapon customizations and things like that. Hopefully, in the near future, we can talk about that and ease the fears that fans feel like Final Fantasy XVI is only action. There is an RPG here as well. If you look at Final Fantasy XVI, one game that is kind of close to how the whole game works is the most recent God of War (2018).
It’s not that much of a surprise since the rebooted God of War games have received near-perfect critical and commercial acclaim. Then again, they’re fairly light on RPG elements, which means Final Fantasy XVI may be more on the action side than some previous entries.
Square Enix is in the home stretch to release Final Fantasy XVI, due to launch on June 22nd for PlayStation 5. Check out Kai’s hands-on preview if you haven’t already.
