New details on Final Fantasy 16 – combat, summons, party members, and more!

Producer Naoki Yoshida reveals more about the upcoming Final Fantasy 16 across a range of interviews

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has done the rounds of interviews to unveil more details about the game. While we’ve seen some trailers, explicit details of what the game is have been sparse so far. However, Yoshida has divulged new details about the game’s world, combat, summons (known as Eikon) and AI partners.

Eikon (summons)

Starting with the Eikon, Yoshida says that these summons will be “fully playable” in the “Eikon versus Eikon battles”. He then goes on to say that the battles will have different mechanics depending on the summon. “For example”, he says, “while one of these battles is reminiscent of a 3D shooting game, another feels like a pro wrestling match, while another, like the one with Titan, incorporates an entire area as the battlefield”.

Combat

After this, Yoshida mentions that main character Clive will face off against some full size Eikons himself. This brings us to the topic of regular combat that will occupy most of the game. In a separate interview with Game Informer Yoshida details how these summons can help in real-time combat. He describes a system of swapping between summon abilities somewhat similar to style-switching from the Devil May Cry series. Coincidentally, Final Fantasy 16’s combat director, Ryota Suzuki, worked on Devil May Cry 5 among other Capcom action games.

Yoshida provides an example of Clive using “one of the Garuda abilities where you lift the enemy up into the air” and following it up with “one of the Titan abilities to pound the enemy into the ground”. Apparently, there will be lots of opportunity for mixing and matching different abilities. This, alongside free-flowing attacks, promises a deeply customizable and stylish combat system that is entirely new to the series. However, players who would prefer an easier time with the combat can play on “Story Focus Mode”, which gives players items to automate combat somewhat. Most likely, this will be similar to the “easy automatic” mode found in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. This mode automatically does combos, allowing less experienced players to focus on avoiding enemies over stringing attacks.

World

Final Fantasy 16 won’t be open world, however Yoshida has said that the game has inspiration from “recent triple-A open world RPGs”. Instead, the game will have an “independent area-based game design” to provide a “global scale” to the game. No doubt, the game will see Clive on a globe-trotting adventure across the six realms that make up the world.

This world will also be more “mature” than previous Final Fantasy games, as Yoshida says “to make sure that we could tell the story that we wanted in the way that we wanted to, we decided to pursue a mature rating in most of the regions that will be releasing the game”. So not only will the game be more action-focused, it will also be exploring more adult themes than previous entries.

Companions

While the game will have party members similar to previous entries, these will be “AI-driven” to let players “focus solely on controlling Clive”. According to Yoshida, “Clive will be accompanied by one or more companions”, suggesting that you will have some agency in choosing who, if anyone, comes with you. He then teased that ‘Torgal’, a wolf-puppy that appeared in the first trailer, could be a companion.

However, this is all the info we’ll be getting on the parties at the moment. Yoshida promises more info on them soon, and in the Game Informer interview promises a third trailer “for release this fall”. Whether this will be at a bigger event or will release standalone is yet to be seen. However, he says the trailer is aiming to focus more on the world, lore, and storyline.

Speaking with PlayStation Blog, Yoshida confirms that the game is playable back-to-front now. However, several languages still needing voicelines recorded, some fine-tuning on both combat and cutscenes, and the de-bugging process stand between now and the game’s release date of Summer 2023.

Which of these systems are you excited to learn more about? Will you be picking up Final Fantasy 16 on release? Let us know down in the comments below! Or, you can chat with us about gaming and entertainment directly by hopping over to our Discord!