Final Fantasy XVI Director Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that the game is nearly complete, and the team plans on releasing a new trailer soon.
The news came during a special livestream about the upcoming crossover between NieR Reincarnation and FFXIV, where Yoshida was asked about the state of Final Fantasy XVI. As translated by Siliconera, apparently the next trailer for the game is finished and ready to go. Although Yoshida didn’t go into details, the release of the trailer was pushed back for some reason.
At the same time, Yoshida said FFXVI is nearly complete, and the team has spent a fair amount of time polishing and debugging. His statements are similar to others that appeared recently in a Uniqulo pamphlet, where Yoshida said FFXIV was “in the final stages of development.” The pamphlet was released for the 35th-anniversary collaboration the store is doing with Final Fantasy. While there’s still likely debugging to do, it’s surprising to hear that a fair amount has already been done, and could indicate that we might see a release date sooner rather than later.
Final Fantasy XVI was first announced during a State of Play presentation in September 2020, and it’s had a markedly different marketing cycle than most titles. In a 2021 interview, Yoshida said he doesn’t like “drip-fed” PR, and that he didn’t plan on showing FFXVI again until the game was nearly ready. So far he’s stuck completely true to that as we’ve never seen another trailer and only have a handful of details from Yoshida himself. It’s a drastic change from other properties like Kingdom Hearts 3, which received trailers and new info over a matter of years.
FFXVI is developed by Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit III, which is the same section responsible for the massively-popular FFXIV. There are of course key members working on both teams, and XIV’s composer, Masayoshi Soken, is also composing for XVI. There are some other interesting team members on FFXVI as well, including Ryota Suzuki, who was a combat designer on Devil May Cry 5.
Final Fantasy XVI is currently in development for PS5.
