Just a week after Naoki Yoshida revealed, in a roundabout way, that Final Fantasy 16 was in its “final stages,” the game’s producer further clarified the status of the game’s development. According to new comments from Yoshida, Final Fantasy 16 is nearing completion and is in the process of being polished and debugged.
Yoshida also said that a new trailer for Final Fantasy 16 is done and ready to go, but was held back by undisclosed factors. Yoshida has promised to give Final Fantasy fans a new look at FF16 sometime this spring, which gives him through June to keep that promise.
The latest update on Final Fantasy 16, which does not have an official release window, came during a livestream about a new Nier Reincarnation-themed event coming to Final Fantasy 14 Online, another game that Yoshida oversees. A translation of Yoshida’s comments by Twitch streamer Audrey indicates that he wants the FF16 team to further polish the game.
During the stream, Yoshida was peppered with questions from Yosuke Saito, producer of the Nier games, who appeared to jokingly imply that Final Fantasy 16 was already done — Saito was apparently aware that Yoshida had gotten some heat from Square Enix for talking about the game’s development status in the pages of Uniqlo’s UT magazine.
While Yoshida’s comments about Final Fantasy 16’s development status are encouraging, it still doesn’t sound like the game is pegged for release in 2022. Square Enix already has a busy year ahead of it, with Forspoken in October, and role-playing games Star Ocean: The Divine Force, The DioField Chronicle, and Valkyrie Profile series sequel Valkyrie Elysium slated for sometime in 2022.
Final Fantasy 16 was announced in September 2020 as a PlayStation 5 game. A PC version has also been announced.