Final Fantasy 16's Jaw-Dropping PS5 World Will Make You Say Wow

Just three more months.

Never played a Final Fantasy title but this could be my first. Looks awesome. Is this a rogue/souls like game?

Looks insane!

This looks incredible. I’m so glad it doesn’t just look bland and brown. Was concerned it was going too western.

Looks gorgeous!

Glad they are invoking a darker tone and leaning back into the fantasy style.

This is something Forspoken tried to do but failed miserably.

I don't know why it took this long for Square to show us this type of gameplay, but better late than never because this is just what I wanted and now I'm getting even more hyped!

@get2sammyb I'm hoping it isn't too simple, it would be pretty disappointing to have someone like the director of DMC 5's gameplay only to have super simplistic combat like Ff15. Man I hated 15's combat.

@LIMA They’re story-driven, mostly linear RPGs. This one seems heavier on action than they used to be though.

Man this looks incredible, with this, Hogwarts Legacy, Spiderman 2 and Zelda TTOTK this is going to be one hell of a year.

@UltimateOtaku91 You forgot about RE4 Remake, Street Fighter 6, Metroid Prime Remaster, Dead Space and Pikmin 4.

I'm really loving the overall look of the world and exploration but the combat just doesn't look exciting or impressive imo.

I haven't played anh FF games since PS2. I've been a PC gamer since the PS2. But got my PS5 the past November. Might have to pick this up. Looks gorgeous.

@KaijuKaiser nice. Thanks for the link. Ton of informative stuff in there. Especially the burning questions part.

@Joker1234 I know theres too many great games this year to choose from so I went with the main 4 (personally). On paper this is the best year for gaming I've seen in a very long time.

Final fantasy 15 royal edition already looks amazing on ps4 pro.so yeah final fantasy 16 looks amazing on ps5 also.word up son

Literally game of the decade, I try to keep my hype in check but I just can't man. The more they keep showing the game off, the more hyped I get. I need this game in my life rn

That clip of the group riding together on chocobos is just bliss. The music, the world, the characters. Everything looks so good

@UltimateOtaku91 I was surprised you didn't mention Fire Emblem Engage lol. I agree that this year is definitely going to be amazing with great games.

Might be the first final fantasy I play properly ...never been really interested..but given the good previews etc I might give this one a real go

@Joker1234 Well I have been playing that a lot today lol just got to chapter 21. It's a very good game.

"decision not to make this title open world, and instead it’s concentrated on a selection of large scale, sandbox type levels"
I mean, that's really what XV was. At first you can only go to the initial desert area, then the area with the lake, and more areas gradually open up as you progress.

@somnambulance Tbh, nothing is competing with Zelda this year I mean come on it's Zelda for crying out loud lol. I'm sure FF16 will score amazing but it's no competitor for Zelda.

Some timestamps for the stream link @KaijuKaiser posted.

11:11-13:14 Gameplay

15:42-17:36 Some areas/environments

24:38-25:54 Eikonic abilities gameplay 30:00-39:39 live demonstration of large area/world map/travelling loading time/hub/training mode/arcade mode/replay stage and one ??? talk

46:50-57:45 Accessibilty options

57:48-58:45 Can you you pet the Torgal(lol)

1:00:27-1:02:18 Eikon vs Eikon More RPG elements in april. There were plenty of more info but I mainly stayed on the parts that contained gameplay.

Seriously felt like ive seen too much already at this point lol. This is going to be a goty contender.

Can't wait, but I don't think I'll watch anymore trailer after this, I'll play it day one 😃

Zero combat or enemies in video. I could easily see the scenery WITH combat..... hmmm

@GorosBat Wasn't really gameplay, looked more like a walking simulator.

@-Sigma- the funniest part in the presentation is when he takes a dig at the Ps5 "oh look it's not. Froze,....whew... it didn't freeze,...it didn't freeze.!" 🤣 (30:20).

Ok this actually looks a lot more like an FF game than anything they've showed at all so far. The combat still will decide it though.

I just hope it has a performance mode that doesn't make the game look like PS3 like every other Luminous engine game, but maybe (maybe!) They haven't forgotten what FF is?

@KundaliniRising333 Uhm, when has final fantasy never been about fantasy?

Hopefully the game doesn't feature this much emptiness. Having big and pretty landscapes is nice and all, but if there is nothing to do except crossing them slowly, it's going to be a little boring.

@LIMA
I hope not!

Not played Final Fantasy since I was a kid but this, this is worthy of attention. Bravo.

@rachetmarvel when it became about driving around taking selfies with a bunch of one dimensional bros. I meant more medieval / Gothic fantasy.

@KundaliniRising333 Well I guess so.

A Final fantasy game doesn't need to be medieval to be good though. My favorite Final Fantasy game is 7 and 10, and they weren't medieval.

FFXV looked great but played like ass and completely forgot to include any kind of coherent story. I'm hoping SE finally remember how to make a decent FF again.

@rachetmarvel yah I hear ya. And agreed

2023 looking to be the twilight year for PS4.
Burning Shores is the start, and with PS5 stock levels way up, FFXVI and Spiderman 2, developers not held back by old tech.

To quote FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida:
"At that time, we were developing the game with the possibility of releasing it on PlayStation 4 in mind, so we were worried about not being able to raise the quality."

Although there are ALWAYS compromises between vision and commercial reality, it's getting to a place this gen where developers can get that bit closer with less holding them back.

Reminds me of Forspoken.

@DrGonzo who cares about either of those? Why is everyone obsessed with what wins game of the year?

As for not out-selling Elden Ring, you mean the biggest selling game of 2022 that sold 20 million plus across 5 platforms? Yeah, probably not. But why does that matter?

God, this looks gorgeous. Can't wait.

Damn. That is pretty.

Medieval + magic = my weak spot.

Can't wait for this game!

@AgentMantis FF15 is a missed opportunity due to development woes. The potentials are definitely there.
I hope this game could overcome those issues and live up to the expectations.

@NEStalgia I was wondering about that too, but I decided it was all dark early to appeal to the DmC and Elden Ring players, try to get some new blood on board with the adult brooding, and they knew they could get the FF fanboys to jump back on board at any time just by showing them some color and a chocobo.

Probably work too. I already always referred to FF12 as FF: Monster Hunter, guess I’ll be calling this FF: MH2. At least it doesn’t look like Vagrant Story 2 anymore, that was always my biggest complaint. I’ll see how Squenix is handling this by Black Friday, I still don’t trust them after the disaster of a release that was FFXV. You shouldn’t have to watch a 2 hour movie and an hour of webisodes before starting a game to know what’s going on, then wait a year, or 2 for them to finish it, then cancel the announced dlc. Maybe I’ll just wait and borrow it from my library, linear like this I’m guessing 30 hours.

@NEStalgia does not run on Luminous engine all we Know it a new engine

@rjejr seeing this made by Yoshi p we won't have issues like 15 if u not aware ff14 is great game with great story I feel we have nothing to worry about.

I was not impressed by the first couple of trailers they put out. Looked pretty bland and uninteresting to me, and I didn’t know what other people were seeing that got them so hyped.

After reading the previews, and seeing footage like this, I am much more convinced that this game might be pretty good. My excitement is growing.

I do kinda wish the game had a character creator, or multiple main characters to choose from. I know Final Fantasy games have never really done this in the past, but I want to play as someone other than a generic gruff white dude named Clive. Hopefully the game is good enough that that won’t matter.

@Impossibilium you can it call ff 14

Square Enix almost always has great world design, this looks like it could be one of their best. Can't wait to explore it.

There's a PAX East show on FF16 with Yoshida and Koji - someone uploaded the highlights vid which was about 26 min - it was very good. Fans should watch it.

@rjejr I hate that pandering to "this looks like other popular thing"... He the best thing of your own thing not a copy of some other thing just for marketing. But at least it LOOKS like FF now.

That doesn't fix that it looks like an over the shoulder action adventure brawler that still seems like an FF spinoff than an actual FF game. Everyone keeps comparing to gow. Gow still plays the same overall as gow did in the PS2 era. Ff tried to be different kinds of RPGs then just decided to not be an rpg and just be gow

I'm sure it'll be an good gow clone with a cooler world, bit I didn't wait a decade for ff to become a gow clone.

@C25CLOUD know for sure, but the rumor and parsing of YoshiP interviews suggests it's just a heavily modified luminous derivative like XIV. Kind of like how Bethesda's Creation isn't Gamebryo but it really is.

@NEStalgia my understanding is unreal engine 4

@C25CLOUD I had thought/hoped that at one time. They tried to use ue4 but found out didn't deliver the details they wanted and moved it to a "heavily modified" XIV engine. XIV is itself an odd combination of Luminous and Crystal Tools, modified.

So I expect the same iffy performance we know from XV and Forspoken where you get 20-30 fps resolution mode and 40-55fps performance mode that looks like a PS3 game.

Sadly looks like game held back by previous generation requirements, but maybe gameplay will be surprisingly good. I try two FF games in my life, giving up shortly after start due to wacky gameplay and childish dialogues.

I'm not really sure FF is for me, but boy do I want to casually stroll around these areas like they do in the video 😍 If this was something more like The Witcher quest wise, I'd be all in!

@NEStalgia you sounding like a hater.

@Lizergamid this game isn’t on the previous generation.

@4kgk2 It depends how it turns out. My feeling from what we know so far is it'll be a typical cinematic action adventure game that will be a decent game but is not actually an RPG, and thus is a spinoff not an ff mainline game.

Unfortunately the comments above that are basically "I don't like FF but if a game were named ff but we're actually god of war, I'd play it" says it'll probably be financially rewarded and Mark the end of ff being ff, an rpg series, and instead Mark it being a visual theme for a series of adventure games.

@NEStalgia the game is a rpg a action rpg. You sound very bitter that the series is going in a new direction. I personally like it because ff 13 and ff15 was very bad,ff16 already looking like a way better game than both of them games.

@4kgk2 I've seen nothing to date that indicates it's still an rpg of beyond rpg-lite Just a linear action adventure hack and slash, gow style.

If it really is an rpg then things are much better, but so far it doesn't look it. Though they keep teasing "later" to talk about such things.

It doesn't look like a bad game, it's just that it looks like another spinoff game, which is fine, just don't call it a mainline entry if it's not even the same genre.

@NEStalgia square enix literally showed a rpg skill tree in a video. I get it you want it to be a turn base rpg but you don’t have to sh*t on the game you sounding childish right now . If Elden ring and Horizon are considered rpg’s so is ff16.

@NEStalgia "bit I didn't wait a decade for ff to become a gow clone"

Fair point. I guess since all the "caring" has been drained out of my body and I just don't care about anything anymore, I'm able to accept that this is not a mainline numbered FF JRPG and it's just the game Forspoken wanted to be, an over the shoulder action adventure game, which happens to be my 2nd favorite genre after JRPG. It still SHOULDN'T be a mainline numbered FF game b/c it ISN'T a playable party JRPG, but that's the world we live in now. See Monster Hunter: World. This at least looks good. Almost like they planned on using Forspoken as cannon fodder. But we won't be calling it FFXVI in my house b/c I'm a cranky old man. Doesn't look anything like GoW to me though, Kratos IS GoW, but I'll come up w/ something to call it after I've played it a bit a couple of years from now.

@C25CLOUD "ff14 is great game with great story"

The online ongoing MMO? Not sure the person running that is a good selling point for my single player experience. Plus, Squenix hasn't been good since the PS1 when they were Squaresoft, so I'll wait.

I just finished playing Witcher 3, all the way through Blood and Wine.

FF16 looks exactly like what I would expect if Witcher 3 and Final Fantasy 14 had a baby.

This game could be amazing.

@rjejr u guys keep on saying that but ff7 remake and 14 shows se making sure ff does not repeat of 15 that was only ff I had issues with and 13 for minor issues. Also 14 being made into a single player experience when comes to dungeons and story

@4kgk2 God of War also has a skill tree. It is not anything close to being an RPG. That still tells us little.

Also, this is why it's impossible to deal with the FF fanbase at this point in any nuanced way. Every criticism of this game becomes "YOU WANT TURN BASED RAWR" No. I didn't say that. In fact I've said multiple times that I'm fine with action. It's not turn-based vs action. But that's all every argument descends into. It's becoming worse than console wars.

@rjejr that's exactly it. It's not a mainline FF game, but they're calling it one for marketing. That's what gets my goat about it. The game itself looks like a fine game, as a new subseries. Not a new mainline entry, the name is what's broken. You don't take the most famous RPG/JRPG in the West, declare you hate the RPG formula, and just make it a God of War game for giggles.

But it goes along with "YoshiP" and the inexplicable obsession fans of XIV have developed for him. His entire background is Western MMOs. His influences are SW: The Old Republic and WoW. His goal was to make MMOs popular in Japan where they weren't. He's a walking Americaphile (who's lived and worked here as well before he went to Square.....on MMOs...) running the top JRPG and turning it into a Sony Santa Monica game.

This is the FF equivalent of taking Uncharted and sending it to a Japanese dev and ending up with a game starring anime waifu Chloe, and numbers are flying out of everyone's heads as you shoot them.

The fandom though....I think the fandom is what will make me hate this game, not the game itself.

@Lizergamid what two ffs did u try out.

@NEStalgia Its' always about the fandoms. Love is blind.

FF has ALWAYS had spinoffs. And good ones at that. Tactics is a FF PS1 game. They didn't call it FF8 (I think it released between 7 & 8) but if this can be 16 Tactics could have been 8. Not that tower defense game, that was truly a spinoff, but lots of people vouch for the everlasting greatness of Tactics, it practically singlehandedly created it's own genre. More of a mainline FF game than this is.

@C25CLOUD ff7 was a REMAKE so anything goes, if you had a problem w/ 15 and 13 that's 2 of the last 3 games and both of the single player games. And even if 14 has a good single player story they still put it inside an MMO.

I think your faith in Squenix may be misplaced. 🤷‍♂️

Never played an FF game before. If it am able to jump in at FF16 I think I might just give it a go.

@rjejr The FF fandom seems to come in 5 varieties:

FF Fan Type 0: "FF7 is the only FF and this is how FF should always be forever and ever and anything else is bad."

FF Stan: "It doesn't matter what it is, how bad it is, or if they turn it into a football game and all it FF:MMXCVI IT'S THE BEST FF GAME EVER an anyone who disagrees is just a hater because it took a new direction!"

The FFXIV premium subscriber: "It's made by YoshiP, a guy famous for being the replacement director for a single MMO game, it's guaranteed to be the greatest thing ever, because everything he does is the greatest thing ever even though it was only one thing plus another thing nobody remembers or talks about, and his ego can fit in a stadium if you fold it right!"

The n00b: "I hate FF and everything FF and anything I've ever seen of anything FF or anything like FF that I've ever seen. But this game looks like God of War so I might actually play this one. This game made me an FF fan because it's not actually an FF game, so it's the best thing the series could have done by making people that don't like the series start to like the series by just making it like some other series we like and not at all like the rest of its own series or even the same genre!"

Normal FF fan: "Why is this new character driven action adventure spinoff made by an MMO guy with an ego the size of Kojima called FFXVI?"

All other types of fans: "WHY DO YOU HATE EVERYTHING?"

Seriously though, that's exactly it. FF has been an IP with tons of spinoffs, and some of them are even very good. There's no reason they could not have made this big action adventure game a spinoff game which is what it clearly appears to be. There's no valid reason to call this "XVI" when it's clearly not even the same genre that the mainline series is known to be, and is run by a director that insists his vision of cinematography is what FF has always been about, while never mentioning a single gameplay concept as part of the significance of the series. Which is fine, for a spinoff. But calling it XVI makes no sense escept from a marketing and brand-portfolio management standpoint which, from Squeenix, I'd expect no less. They haven't planned a proper FF mainline entry since Sakaguchi left. 15 wasn't even planned as a mainline entry at all. 13 was an experiment that kind of failed, now this that doesn't seem like an evolution of FF it seems like a reboot of FF as a new genre to a new audience that named itself XVI just to guarantee sales to old fans while not catering to what they want.

I'd rather they'd have retired the FF series after 13 and just declared that the market for it is gone and start a new IP, or start a new sub-series (like Persona that became a consistent subseries of SMT that became more popular than the mainline series, but didn't just step on the main series, they just budgeted that the main series is more niche and everything is fine. I'd have been fine with Final Fantasy Adventures becoming a more popular spinoff series of narrative adventure games while numbered FF remained a niche of party-driven RPGs or something.

If Sega/Atlus can figure it out, I'm sure somebody at Squeenix could have.

I will explore every inch of it 😍

Day 1!

@NEStalgia "I'd rather they'd have retired the FF series after..."

The fact that they named a FF spinoff MMO FFXI means we should have stopped having this conversation OVER 20 YEARS AGO!! So I guess it's really on us for pretending mainline numbered FF games have meant anything for the past 2 decades. 😉

If you look at FFX, w/ it's turn based party system w/ everyone standing in a line waiting their turn, like the previous 9 FFs before it, FF really ended there, w/ X-2 being a Grand Theft Auto sequel, then FFXI MMO. They did go back w/ 12 and 13 but really FF as a JRPG series has bene finished for over 20 years and I guess we should just have accepted it way back when and moved on.

Come to think of it, I think I did move on after 12 but the trailer for 15 w/ Leviathan I let suck me back in. I bet if I look I can find a decade old comment to that effect. Maybe after lunch.

@NEStalgia Found a 7 year old article where I say I only was excited for FFXV b/c of Leviathan, but nothing about the series being over for me yet. I'll keep looking.

"Though to be honest I think I knew when I saw the first screen shot of leviathan, one of my favorite summons."

Oh, and history repeats itself, my thoughts on the FFXV trailer sound vaguely familiar. 😂

"I didn't like the trailer at all, too dark, couldn't see a thing, and metal hand rails on concrete stairs is not my idea of a FF setting."

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2016/02/soapbox_final_fantasy_xv_finally_looks_like_a_real_game

OK, found what I think I was thinking of.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2014/01/final_fantasy_xv_director_says_ps4_is_a_mountain_to_climb

Leviathan gets all the feels.

"That picture made me happy. It brought back my earliest fondest memories of the first time Leviathan laid waste to the battlefield w/ a tidal wave. Summons the last few games just haven't felt the same."

My 10 year ago thoughts on FF no longer being FF 🤷‍♂️

"Maybe I will want to play another FF game again. Some day."

@NEStalgia I like the perspective. It means that your character isn't blocking the thing you're looking at, i.e. in the middle of the screen.

@LIMA more like DMC in this current iteration

@Octane Maybe. But nothing strikes me as unique at all. It doesn't feel like either classic FF, or a new and experimental thing one can say is uniquely FF. It feels like it's a cookie cutter template of "AAA action adventure hack and slash cinematic game with semi-open environments." I don't see a unique game here. I see a copy/paste game presenting a new movie, which, to be fair, is exactly what the team basically keeps saying it is while reiterating that they'll tell us about how RPG it is some later time (like after launch? It's 2.5 months away....)

@DrGonzo bro is not like the VGA mean anything to anyone, there's hundreds of different VG outlets out there, the VGA are just one of them

They dont like living in the shadow of fromsoftware??? dude like you even know the people that work at square or how they feel lol

also elden rin sold 20 million copies if im not mistaking ( across ps4, ps5, xbox s-x and pc)

Final Fantasy Remake sol 14 millions across ps5, ps4 and pc, sooooo yeah i would advice you to do your homework and verify the sales figures before talking about sales numbers and industry clout