The developers of Final Fantasy XVI have revealed new information about the upcoming triple-A JRPG, including the little-mentioned party system.

As Final Fantasy XVI gets closer and closer to gold, the game’s developers are talking more and more about the hard work they’ve put in over the past six years. This includes notable changes to the game’s party system compared to FFXV. Earlier this month, a Japanese publication published a wide-ranging interview with the game’s directors, Hiroshi Takai and Kazutoyo Maehiro, and producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida. In it, they revealed a lot of new information about the upcoming JRPG. Among other things, the developers revealed further details about the game’s party system. They also hinted that Clive Rosfield might not be the only playable character in FFXVI.

Final Fantasy XVI has been in development at Square Enix Creative Business Unit 3 since 2016.

Apparently, single-player games do not necessarily equal single-character experiences. In fact, Maehiro mentioned that players would take control of characters other than the main character Clive Rosfield, at least for the first few hours of Final Fantasy XVI. It’s worth noting that the context of his (machine-translated) statement suggests that the producer may have been referring to an early version of the game, during which the developers were experimenting with more playable characters. It is, therefore, a little early to be betting on a multi-character solution.

More apparent is that the game will have a party system, keeping with the series’s decades-old tradition. While previously shared gameplay footage showed Clive fighting alone, Yoshida clarified that this was a stylistic decision. He noted that a travelling team will almost always accompany Clive. A similar system worked in Final Fantasy XV. Although players could still switch between the four main characters in the 2016 game. This time, however, things will be different. AI will fully control all team members in FFXVI, Yoshida confirmed. As for the roster of heroes themselves, the developers revealed the game’s main character roster last month.

In the same interview, Yoshida also revealed that the game is close to going gold and that an exact release date for Final Fantasy XVI will be announced by the end of the year.

Square Enix previously hinted at a summer 2023 release. But the fact that developers are moving faster than expected could even allow the new episode to be released as early as the first half of 2023.

It was confirmed early on that the game would be a timed PlayStation exclusive. However, a recent promo from Sony revealed that FFXVI’s PS5 exclusivity period would be pretty short (at least compared to the Final Fantasy VII Remake…)

Source: Game Watch