It seems Naoki Yoshida can't catch a break with the Final Fantasy series at the moment. FF14 was riddled with server issues after the huge rise in the player count that came with the Endwalker expansion, and now the development of Final Fantasy 16 has suffered major setbacks because of Covid-19.
The game's Twitter handle put up a long note by producer Naoki Yoshida, talking about the developmental issues currently being faced by the Final Fantasy 16 team. Yoshida's note mentioned that the devs will not be able to provide fans with more information on the game as promised earlier. The complications arising due to the latest surge in Covid-19 cases has resulted in the development being pushed back by "almost a half year."
"In an effort to offset the effects of Covid-19, we've had to decentralize that workforce by permitting staff to tackle their assignments from home," he said. "This has unfortunately hampered communication from the Tokyo office which, in turn, has led to delays in – or in extreme cases, cancellations of – asset deliveries from our outsource partners."
He further noted that the team spent much of 2021 preparing for these eventualities, in order to limit the impact to a minimum. These processes have allowed them to focus on tasks like "increasing graphic resource quality, refining combat mechanics, fleshing out individual battles, putting the finishing touches on cutscenes, and conducting overall graphical optimizations."
As promised by the team, we were supposed to get some new information sometime before next year but that's unlikely, thanks to these new developments. However, Yoshida noted that fans could now look forward to Spring 2022, as that's when the devs will be planning to make a big reveal. He signed off the note by apologizing for the delay and thanking fans for their patience.
Back in October, Yoshida revealed that Final Fantasy 16's main scenario had been completed. While it didn't feature at Tokyo Game Show in any major way, Yoshida updated fans with this information. He wasn't too clear on what "main scenario" meant, but presumably it means that the main story and quests have been finalized.