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[Aenima]

Looking great. Hope the exploration is good in this game, cuz the world looks gorgeous.

 

[Danjin44]

Added one or two extra screens to the OP originally missed.

Looking forward to seeing this rendered in-game:

Beautiful!!!

 

[YukiOnna]

Added one or two extra screens to the OP originally missed.

Looking forward to seeing this rendered in-game:

Yeah. Crystalline Dominion (the art) is the kingdom I'm looking forward to seeing rendered in-game.
The Dominion is featured again in the key art of the website.

 

[Rickyiez]

This looks like the FF I want. No edgy teens, or Nomura designs. It looks far removed from XIII, VII R, XV and all that shit. Good.

It also doesn't look like an FF game at all

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Agree. The flat character models in particular stand out a lot due to this exact problem. Everything else looks lit, though.

FFVII Remakes character models were fantastic and seem higher poly than FFXVI's at present. But still a year of dev here, so I'll imagine they'll be polishing it up until release.

 

[samoilaaa]

is it just me or the world looks dead , like the nature or the cities are not filled with anything

 

[Teslerum]

It also doesn't look like an FF game at al

What?

Of course it does. Art Director and Art Style have been well established in the series and for example the Eikon's design are probably the most classic FF stuff in a long time. That's FF Ramuh, Shiva and Titan if I've ever seen them.

 

[Kev Kev]

is it just me or the world looks dead , like the nature or the cities are not filled with anything

from the two trailers, its looking more and more like this will be a very linear, combat focused game (think FF13). they dont need that to look alive, they just need the hallway simulator and battle arenas to look shiny, and the combat to be aDrEnAlInE PuMpInG fAsT pAcEd AcTiOn!!!!1!! and dont forget EPIC SUMMONS! lol

i hope im wrong but thats all theyve shown us so...

 

[samoilaaa]

from the two trailers, its looking more and more like this will be a very linear, combat focused game (think FF13). they dont need that to look alive, they just need the hallway simulator and battle arenas to look shiny, and the combat to be aDrEnAlInE PuMpInG fAsT pAcEd AcTiOn!!!!1!! and dont forget EPIC SUMMONS! lol

i hope im wrong but thats all theyve shown us so...

as long as it has a good mature story with well written characters i dont mind , in rpgs i value story the most

 

[Kev Kev]

as long as it has a good mature story with well written characters i dont mind , in rpgs i value story the most

i think youll like this one then. theyve put an emphasis on story in the two trailers as well, to be fair

for me its all about adventure and exploration, the open world, traversal, secrets, searching for hidden items, etc. so these two trailers have been very disappointing for me, to say the least...

 

[Myths]

At least its not fake French: l'cie, fal'cie, cie'tch, made FF13 hard to follow sometimes, but English derived terms are a lot easier to parse.

While they are actually based on the French word Ciel, they did come off as a little extra. I have no problems with made up or shuffled words, XVI seems very straightforward concept wise. Dominant was just an interesting word of choice.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Exploration trailer will come. Don't think this will be open world (thank god), but don't think this will be linear either.

I expect wide open zones, like FF12, but more connected / seamless.

 

[Brigandier]

i think youll like this one then. theyve put an emphasis on story in the two trailers as well, to be fair

for me its all about adventure and exploration, the open world, traversal, secrets, searching for hidden items, etc. so these two trailers have been very disappointing for me, to say the least...

I really like traversal and exploring for secrets and hidden stuff too, Guess that's one of the reasons I love Xenoblade series so much.

I hope FF16 has some of this, 15 was so barren and 13 trilogy was so linear it was rancid.

 

[Meicyn]

Two Eikons per element for some? Ifrit and Phoenix both fire.

Possible they may be going for an astral/umbral light/dark approach. Phoenix is the light/astral incarnation of fire, Ifrit is the dark/umbral incarnation of the same element. Joshua witnesses what I presume to be his father’s head getting lopped off, so I imagine he at that point harbors some… angry thoughts resulting in Ifrit being manifested rather than Phoenix? Pure speculation of course.

Perhaps we get Ixion in place of Ramuh if such a system were in place. Garuda being on the dark side, Sylph instead for the light version? I’m probably speculating more than I should.

 

[Caio]

Love the graphics and art design, very hyped !

 

[OsirisBlack]

Possible they may be going for an astral/umbral light/dark approach. Phoenix is the light/astral incarnation of fire, Ifrit is the dark/umbral incarnation of the same element. Joshua witnesses what I presume to be his father’s head getting lopped off, so I imagine he at that point harbors some… angry thoughts resulting in Ifrit being manifested rather than Phoenix? Pure speculation of course.

Perhaps we get Ixion in place of Ramuh if such a system were in place. Garuda being on the dark side, Sylph instead for the light version? I’m probably speculating more than I should.

No, speculation is fun and everyone of the popular FF streamers is suggesting the same. Also to the people above It's looking more and more likely that it is an open world game.

 

[mortal]

Necessary reading folks.

The world is called Valisthea.

In the world the most powerful creatures are known as Eikons (these are the powerful summons basically) and the people who posses the power to wield one are known as dominants. Think of them like Naruto having the 9 tailed demon fox inside of him, and you'll pretty much have a damn good idea of where they're probably taking this stuff. There may even be a crazy ass ritual to forcefully remove one from a dominant, which probably kills them.

The game has 6 different realms.

The Grand Duchy of Rosaria
The Holy Empire of Sanbreque
The Dhalmekian Republic
The Iron Kingdom
The Crystalline Dominion
The Kingdom of Waloed

https://na.finalfantasyxvi.com/world/

Much of this is giving me some heavy Vagrant Story & FFXII vibes. FFXVI Joshua even resembles the Joshua from Vagrant Story.

If you told me this story took place in Ivalice, I'd believe you. I know some of the team working on FFXVI have expressed their admiration for Yasumi Matsuno on multiple occasions, so in a sense, there is an abstract connection there.

 

[Hugare]

Added one or two extra screens to the OP originally missed.

Looking forward to seeing this rendered in-game:

You'll get 8 explorable buildings and a huge .JPG crystal on the background

Remember Altissia from FF XV?

Even for FF 7 Remake Square didnt have the budget/staff to make an explorable city

FF XVI will be open world, so no way that they will have time to make a city like this explorable

Control your expectations so you dont get disapointed

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

You'll get 8 explorable buildings and a huge .JPG crystal on the background

Remember Altissia from FF XV?

Even for FF 7 Remake Square didnt have the budget/staff to make an explorable city

FF XVI will be open world, so no way that they will have time to make a city like this explorable

Control your expectations so you dont get disapointed

Seems like this has had more time to cook than the FFXV reboot, which only had about 3 years of actual dev time, alongside engine development.

Pre-production here began in 2016, full dev about 2018 and releasing in 2023, seemingly has a higher budget too and is based on similar tech as XV. Some of the assets seem similar and repurposed.

So I think it'll be a more well developed game and feel much more complete, but yes certainly not expecting a big open world with dozens of towns and cities, but am expecting much more than XV.

 

[saintjules]

I can't wait for this game to literally set my PS5 on hellfire

FTFY

 

[OsirisBlack]

You'll get 8 explorable buildings and a huge .JPG crystal on the background

Remember Altissia from FF XV?

Even for FF 7 Remake Square didnt have the budget/staff to make an explorable city

FF XVI will be open world, so no way that they will have time to make a city like this explorable

Control your expectations so you dont get disapointed

FFXV was in development hell for how many years? I am amazed at how serviceable it is for how troubled its development was. I actually like several things about FFXV but I expect a more focused and cohesive project. I expect a much more lived-in world than FFXV and more exploration.

I'd expect it to resemble Horizon Forbidden West as far as the size and scope of explorable cities perhaps a bit larger. Yoshi P directly stated that he did not like that SE didn't have a game that could directly compete with HFW and God of War. I will definitely keep my expectations in check but I won't discount what they are shooting for. Elden Ring has some of my favorite exploration ever and that is with no cities (the dancing crazies don't count).

 

[Kev Kev]

Exploration trailer will come. Don't think this will be open world (thank god), but don't think this will be linear either.

I expect wide open zones, like FF12, but more connected / seamless.

so kind of like... an open world? lol jk i know what you mean. im okay with ff12's open world/zones (i loved ff12... and hell even ff12 zones were a little overly large in some places) but they need to bring back vehicles, boats, ships, flying, chocobos, etc. make the world vertical, have hidden items, caves, bosses, fun mini games (!!!), interesting NPCs, actual towns and villages, and things to do and find in those town and villages. make the world interesting, alive, fun to travel around and explore, and im in. thats what FF is and has always been.

its nice that you believe in square so much, i wish i had your optimism, but the only concrete evidence we have to go on are the two current trailers, and they havent shown enough to warrant as much praise as theyve received, imo. and i havent seen them say anything about releasing an exploration trailer...? if youre just hoping thats fine, im hoping they do too...

now before you guys go all "oh but yoshi p, yoshi p!" fuck yoshi p. i dont know who any of these fuckers are and it takes more than one person to make a great game. all that matters is how does the game actually play. and these two trailers simply havent shown that.

unless of course, what theyve shown is all the game actually is.

 

[OsirisBlack]

so kind of like... an open world? lol jk i know what you mean. im okay with ff12's open world/zones (i loved ff12... and hell even ff12 zones were a little overly large in some places) but they need to bring back vehicles, boats, ships, flying, chocobos, etc. make the world vertical, have hidden items, caves, bosses, fun mini games (!!!), interesting NPCs, actual towns and villages, and things to do and find in those town and villages. make the world interesting, alive, fun to travel around and explore, and im in. thats what FF is and has always been.

its nice that you believe in square so much, i wish i had your optimism, but the only concrete evidence we have to go on are the two current trailers, and they havent shown enough to warrant as much praise as theyve received, imo. and i havent seen them say anything about releasing an exploration trailer...? if youre just hoping thats fine, im hoping they do too...

now before you guys go all "oh but yoshi p, yoshi p!" fuck yoshi p. i dont know who any of these fuckers are and it takes more than one person to make a great game. all that matters is how does the game actually play. and these two trailers simply havent shown that.

unless of course, what theyve shown is all the game actually is.

I dead ass laughed at the "So kind of like... an open world" comment.
Here you go, watch it, they definitely have more than one person working on this. It has been in the oven for a lot longer than people suspect.
Check the timeline FFXIV Heavensward released June 23, 2015. The main concept artist was pulled from FFXIV at around that time. Several other key people were pulled from FFXIV at the end of 2016.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVtM7DkXb9s&list=LL&index=4

 

[Teslerum]

i loved ff12

i dont know who any of these fuckers are

Edit: I mean its been posted multiple times already, but:

Director: Has been involved at Square since the early 1990's, mostly on Battle Design and Art Direction in games like FFV, Romancing Saga, Legend of Mana and Last Remnant.

Art Director: Ditto. Mid 90's. Came along with Matsuno from Quest to Square. Was responsible for the art in nearly every Ivalice game including FF12.

Creative Director: Ditto. Mid 90's. Also has been around for every Ivalice game in writing, battle and level design roles. Wrote Square's arguably best recieved story in the last 10 years (Heavensword expansion).

I mean in terms of experience it's very hard to find a better group at Square.

 

[Joelenheimer]

So when do you guys think this will release?

Summer?

I’m gonna get a PS5 for this

I really hate that this is a PS5 exclusive for what will probably be a year (like VII-R) I don't want to, but I'm getting a PS5 for this too...

 

[Hugare]

Seems like this has had more time to cook than the FFXV reboot, which only had about 3 years of actual dev time, alongside engine development.

Pre-production here began in 2016, full dev about 2018 and releasing in 2023, seemingly has a higher budget too and is based on similar tech as XV. Some of the assets seem similar and repurposed.

So I think it'll be a more well developed game and feel much more complete, but yes certainly not expecting a big open world with dozens of towns and cities, but am expecting much more than XV.

I'm certainly expecting more than FF XV, that's for sure

But I'm not expecting a fully explorable city.

In one of the released screenshots, where the main character is looking at the city from far away, you can see that the crystal is a .png image.

It's not being rendered in real time. Which means that you wont be able to reach the city without getting a load screen that'll swap that .png image for an asset made with geometry.

I expect to be able to explore a small, closed chunk of that city

FFXV was in development hell for how many years? I am amazed at how serviceable it is for how troubled its development was. I actually like several things about FFXV but I expect a more focused and cohesive project. I expect a much more lived-in world than FFXV and more exploration.

I'd expect it to resemble Horizon Forbidden West as far as the size and scope of explorable cities perhaps a bit larger. Yoshi P directly stated that he did not like that SE didn't have a game that could directly compete with HFW and God of War. I will definitely keep my expectations in check but I won't discount what they are shooting for. Elden Ring has some of my favorite exploration ever and that is with no cities (the dancing crazies don't count).

Again, I compared it to FF XV because they teased Altissia but delivered 5 houses to explore in total there in the final game

Suret, FF XV development was a mess. But even in FF VII Remake, the FF that probably had the most talented staff at SE and huge budget, still delivered small pieces of Midgard to visit

I'm playing Forbidden West right now, and so far I haven't seen anything as big as Novigrad from The Witcher, for example. And the city here seems even bigger than Novigrad.

I don't expect Square to deliver a fully explorable city

so kind of like... an open world? lol jk i know what you mean. im okay with ff12's open world/zones (i loved ff12... and hell even ff12 zones were a little overly large in some places) but they need to bring back vehicles, boats, ships, flying, chocobos, etc. make the world vertical, have hidden items, caves, bosses, fun mini games (!!!), interesting NPCs, actual towns and villages, and things to do and find in those town and villages. make the world interesting, alive, fun to travel around and explore, and im in. thats what FF is and has always been.

its nice that you believe in square so much, i wish i had your optimism, but the only concrete evidence we have to go on are the two current trailers, and they havent shown enough to warrant as much praise as theyve received, imo. and i havent seen them say anything about releasing an exploration trailer...? if youre just hoping thats fine, im hoping they do too...

now before you guys go all "oh but yoshi p, yoshi p!" fuck yoshi p. i dont know who any of these fuckers are and it takes more than one person to make a great game. all that matters is how does the game actually play. and these two trailers simply havent shown that.

unless of course, what theyve shown is all the game actually is.

Yeah I expect something like FF XII, but that would be such a dated design choice, imo

Since then we had so many huge open world games with big cities. Going back to loading screens for entering/leaving small hubs would be a bad look.

 

[Kev Kev]

the 2 trailers theyve shown us are not reminiscent of ff12 in the slightest. just because some japanese guys name on it doesn't say anything about whether or not im going to like what they do

and i watched that video OsirisBlack thanks for sharing. it sounds like the game is in good hands, and thats great, but im just not into the developer worship so it hasnt changed my opinion much. they just need to show me more of the game, specifically the exploration and world, and all that stuff i mentioned in the post above.

this Vivi poster tho...

btw the way, the link above wasnt working for me, so here is the video for anyone else it might not be working for... if that doesnt work just search on youtube: "Why FFXVI Could Be THE BEST Final Fantasy Ever..."

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

You'll get 8 explorable buildings and a huge .JPG crystal on the background

Remember Altissia from FF XV?

Even for FF 7 Remake Square didnt have the budget/staff to make an explorable city

FF XVI will be open world, so no way that they will have time to make a city like this explorable

Control your expectations so you dont get disapointed

I don’t even think I’d want a big, fully explorable city. Cities in FF games mostly serve as a breather where the plot advances + you get a bit of local color before getting back to your adventuring. FF7 onward have done a pretty good job of giving you small city areas that feel like they’re just a piece of a much larger, lived-in whole, and that don’t bog you down with tons of boring side quests and FOMO.

Last thing I want from FF is a giant city filled with lazy assholes standing around asking you to go forage for tomatoes or find their missing cats or some shit. (And you KNOW that’s what we’d get)

 

[KXVXII9X]

Game of Thrones, The Witcher etc... Pretty much the exact same thing. FF XVI is heavily Westernized in its designs. FF XVI also has characters with "ugly" faces. Game is made to cater to the Western audience first and foremost.

Weren't the first 4 games a nice blend of western and eastern fantasy. FFXVI is much closer to the original titles far more than the latest games. I really don't get why FXVI all of a sudden is too western. Are we going to forget characters like Barret Wallace and Snow Villiers exist?

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I really like traversal and exploring for secrets and hidden stuff too, Guess that's one of the reasons I love Xenoblade series so much.

I hope FF16 has some of this, 15 was so barren and 13 trilogy was so linear it was rancid.

You obviously didn’t play XIII-2 or LR because those weren’t linear at all.

You'll get 8 explorable buildings and a huge .JPG crystal on the background

Remember Altissia from FF XV?

Even for FF 7 Remake Square didnt have the budget/staff to make an explorable city

FF XVI will be open world, so no way that they will have time to make a city like this explorable

Control your expectations so you dont get disapointed

1. Altissia was actually rather big and confusing (but still a giant waste of resources and used in an uninteresting way).

2. What?? FFVIIR had Sector 7, Sector 8, and Wall Market… is this a joke? Lol. They were all “explorable cities,” though they weren’t very diverse in terms of environmental design because it takes place in Midgar. If you wanted something way more crowded and big when it comes to cities then this particular Business Division of Square Enix doesn’t care for that. It’s the same team that made X and the XIII trilogy. But the game definitely has “explorable towns” with a lot of NPC’s and a decent amount of sidequests.

3. The only reason you might be onto something with your comment about XVI’s towns is because it’s directed by the same guy who directed The Last Remnant which, IIRC, had lots of cities, but they were divided into tiny sections and you could really only enter pubs for quests and guilds for recruiting.

so kind of like... an open world? lol jk i know what you mean. im okay with ff12's open world/zones (i loved ff12... and hell even ff12 zones were a little overly large in some places) but they need to bring back vehicles, boats, ships, flying, chocobos, etc. make the world vertical, have hidden items, caves, bosses, fun mini games (!!!), interesting NPCs, actual towns and villages, and things to do and find in those town and villages. make the world interesting, alive, fun to travel around and explore, and im in. thats what FF is and has always been.

its nice that you believe in square so much, i wish i had your optimism, but the only concrete evidence we have to go on are the two current trailers, and they havent shown enough to warrant as much praise as theyve received, imo. and i havent seen them say anything about releasing an exploration trailer...? if youre just hoping thats fine, im hoping they do too...

now before you guys go all "oh but yoshi p, yoshi p!" fuck yoshi p. i dont know who any of these fuckers are and it takes more than one person to make a great game. all that matters is how does the game actually play. and these two trailers simply havent shown that.

unless of course, what theyve shown is all the game actually is.

Ugh could you make your point without sounding like a 12-year-old?

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I don’t even think I’d want a big, fully explorable city. Cities in FF games mostly serve as a breather where the plot advances + you get a bit of local color before getting back to your adventuring. FF7 onward have done a pretty good job of giving you small city areas that feel like they’re just a piece of a much larger, lived-in whole, and that don’t bog you down with tons of boring side quests and FOMO.

Last thing I want from FF is a giant city filled with lazy assholes standing around asking you to go forage for tomatoes or find their missing cats or some shit. (And you KNOW that’s what we’d get)

I agree with this. To be frank I never have, and never will, care about towns/cities and I’ve never played a game where they’re fun to spend time in. I’m fine with a little break from the adventuring and fighting but that’s it.

 

[CrimsonSquall]

I really hate that this is a PS5 exclusive for what will probably be a year (like VII-R) I don't want to, but I'm getting a PS5 for this too...

It’s been way longer than a year bud

 

[hussar16]

graphics looks better lighting wise but the models and art directions still ugly

 

[Lethal01]

Without a mix of Scifi and fantasy it just doesn't feel like Final Fantasy, same goes for the lack of party.

I've got other series I would go to if I wanted a by the book fantasy game.

 

[remember_spinal]

Without a mix of Scifi and fantasy it just doesn't feel like Final Fantasy, same goes for the lack of party.

I've got other series I would go to if I wanted a by the book fantasy game.

Tell me you only started playing final fantasy at 6 without telling me you started playing at 6

 

[Danjin44]

Without a mix of Scifi and fantasy it just doesn't feel like Final Fantasy, same goes for the lack of party.

I've got other series I would go to if I wanted a by the book fantasy game.

I guess this not considered Final Fantasy now!?

 

[Reallink]

So is this using the FF14 engine and recycling assets? It looks like they just took 14 and dialed up the environment and character detail a bit with the resources saved from not having to render several dozens or hundreds of MMO player characters on screen at once.

 

[Lethal01]

Tell me you only started playing final fantasy at 6 without telling me you started playing at 6

You do realize that there were mechs and flying fortresses in this series since FF1 right?

That aside, you are proving my point by showing that scifi has been a core element of the series for the vast majority of it's life. and has been present from the start. There only being 2 games where it's not proves my point that.

 

[Lethal01]

I guess this not considered Final Fantasy now!?

It is indeed an outlier of what the series has been for 30 years by having little scifi, technological or modern elements mixed in. That's just objectively true.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

quite literally the best looking game of our time

art does wonders

Is this satire?

 

[YukiOnna]

Without a mix of Scifi and fantasy it just doesn't feel like Final Fantasy, same goes for the lack of party.

I've got other series I would go to if I wanted a by the book fantasy game.

I think both settings are valid for FF as both have featured. That said, with the heavy focus on Sci Fi/Modern (even in FF14 where they have straight Gundams and highly advanced ancient civilizations) I'm glad to go the other direction for another FF. 7R will retain that regardless and they said they see that as a mainline so it's good there's two different ones.

 

[Danjin44]

It is indeed an outlier of what the series has been for 30 years by having little scifi, technological or modern elements mixed in. That's just objectively true.

You say that but Final Fantasy III is still considered "Final Fantasy" despite lack scifi element so I dont see any problem here.

 

[lefty1117]

may I have turn based combat please

 

[YukiOnna]

may I have turn based combat please

You have spin-offs, Dragon Quest, and Bravely Default team for that. I'm not trying to be condescending or anything, but Nomura and Kitase like action based games and Yoshi-P seems to agree so it's just more realistic to accept it lol.

 

[Kumomeme]

So is this using the FF14 engine and recycling assets? It looks like they just took 14 and dialed up the environment and character detail a bit with the resources saved from not having to render several dozens or hundreds of MMO player characters on screen at once.

hahaha lol. i wish FF14 engine and asset is half of this good. but nope. particularly asset in 14 is nowhere close to this. not even a bit.

 

[anothertech]

What's insane is these are gameplay shots. Not bullshits from cinematics.

Beautiful

 

[Danjin44]

may I have turn based combat please

I love turn based combat but it’s very clear mainline FF is not going back to turn based…. I made peace with that I hope the deliver on good action combat.

I still have games like Dragon Quest and Shin Megami Tensei series to give me my turn based goodness.

 

[YukiOnna]

In terms of world size, it can be linear with branching paths, open world or whatever... just make sure it doesn't repeat XV's.
That said, I just hope it's like the recent Dragon Quest. I think it's good enough.

 

[Lethal01]

You say that but Final Fantasy III is still considered "Final Fantasy" despite lack scifi element so I dont see any problem here.

It just doesn't have what I've gotten from playing the last 30 years of Final Fantasy, I value those elements and to me they are a core part of the game, If someone says it doesn't feel like FF without turn-based fights, I see not problem with that. others are free to disagree I obviously can't dictate what people say it an important element of the franchise.

Unless they are for not having a party in which case they are objectively and morally incorrect

 

[Danjin44]

In terms of world size, it can be linear with branching paths, open world or whatever... just make sure it doesn't repeat XV's.
That said, I just hope it's like the recent Dragon Quest. I think it's good enough.

Both Xenoblade 1&2 are linear RPG with huge open map, FFXVI could be same way.