Final Fantasy 16 will be here in June. One of the biggest and most anticipated games launching in 2023, but only those of you who own a PS5 will be able to enjoy it for an undetermined amount of time. Timed PlayStation exclusives have become the norm for Final Fantasy, and apparently, this particular entry in the series will be PS5-only as that's the only platform capable of handling its combat.
That's according to Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida. Speaking with IGN after the site got a hands-on preview of the next Final Fantasy game (thanks, Kotaku), Yoshida explained Final Fantasy 16's “next-gen combat” is only possible thanks to the PS5. “While you’re battling Ifrit and Garuda and having that big battle, in the background, the PlayStation 5 is loading the next scene... It’s getting ready, so we can seamlessly move into it,” Yoshida explained.
The game's Eikon battles, which are huge spectacles where the player doesn't have to do much but the visuals are pretty special, appear to be the biggest reason why Square Enix believes a PS5-only launch was the studio's only option. In fact, Final Fantasy 16's combat director Ryoto Suzuki claims if it wasn't for the power of the PS5, Square's next game in its biggest series would still be in development.
“To be able to do all of those seamlessly without any [load] times is possible because of the power of the PS5. If we didn’t have the memory the PS5 has, and also the transfer speed of the SSD that the PS5 has, we would still be in development,” Suzuki revealed. All evidence that if you were hoping Final Fantasy 16 might be on a different platform relatively soon, you might want to temper those expectations.
There was a hope that Final Fantasy 16 might launch on PC six months after its initial release date. Small print in an ad for the game appears to imply that, but comments made by Yoshida since have muddied those waters. Both he and Suzuki appear to have doubled down on the belief the next Final Fantasy will be a PS5 exclusive for a very long time, strongly implying the game simply won't work, or won't be anywhere near the same, on any other platform.