Final Fantasy 16 was officially unveiled at Sony’s PlayStation Showcase event in September 2020. Despite the lack of news, Square Enix had earlier mentioned that it will share noteworthy announcements regarding Final Fantasy 16 in 2021, but could not deliver on this promise.
Some fans believed that Final Fantasy 16 would show up at October’s State of Play, but it was even absent from The Game Awards in December. Instead, Forspoken, another game published by Square Enix, was heavily featured at The Game Awards, resulting in many fans losing all hope of seeing Final Fantasy 16 this year. The FF16 development team has just shared a new message that details some of the troubles faced during development and promises to reveal more information in the new future.
Naoki Yoshida, producer of Final Fantasy 16, mentions that development was set back by almost half a year as a result of the ongoing pandemic. The developers had to work from home, which hampered communication with the Square Enix office in Tokyo, and ultimately resulted in delays as well as cancellations of outsourced assets. Yoshida then confirms that the current plan is to host a big reveal in Spring 2022 in order to build excitement in the lead up to Final Fantasy 16’s release. He ends the message by apologizing for the delay and thanks fans for their continued patience.
The message also states that the development team had spent much of 2021 dealing with issues that come with developing games from home. Now, the aim is to improve the overall graphical quality of Final Fantasy 16, in addition to refining the combat mechanics as well as focusing on better optimization.
It was earlier confirmed that the main story of Final Fantasy 16 has been completely written, and it seems like the game is in the final stages of the development cycle. While this does not guarantee that FF16 will launch next year, fans can hope to get to their hands on the game in the second half of 2022.
Naoki Yoshida also serves as the producer and director of Final Fantasy 14. The recently released Endwalker expansion has been met with universal acclaim, and it seems like fans trust Yoshida and the entire team at Creative Business Unit III within Square Enix. As evident by the message shared today, Square Enix has gotten much better at communicating with the audience, and it looks like Final Fantasy 16 will be worth the long wait whenever it comes out.
Final Fantasy 16 is currently in development for PS5.