Final Fantasy 16 Hit With Six-Month Delay
I don’t think anyone was expecting Final Fantasy 16 to come out tomorrow, but according to an announcement made by Square Enix over the weekend, it’ll take even longer to make than we figured. Square had plans to show the first footage from the next officially numbered Final Fantasy game around this time. Instead, producer Naoki Yoshida came forward with a statement explaining the issues they were having, one being very familiar.
“I promised I would have more information on Final Fantasy XVI sometime later in 2021,” Yoshida said on the FF16 Twitter. “However, I regret to inform you that I will be unable to keep that promise as complications stemming from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have delayed the game’s development by almost a half year.”
You might argue that COVID isn’t exactly new anymore, and the team has had plenty of time to adjust. But that’s the problem — after all those adjustments, Yoshida looked at the schedule and realized pulling it all together would take longer than his original estimation.
“We have spent much of 2021 addressing this issue and hope to see its impact to a minimum by the new year, allowing us to better focus on the tasks at hand: increasing graphic resource quality, refining combat mechanics, fleshing out individual battles, putting the finishing touches on cutscenes, and conducting overall graphical optimization. Our primary goal is now to be as hands on with the game as possible in order to see it fully polished.”
Long story short: the game isn’t ready for public viewing yet. Yoshida says the time will come in “the spring of 2022” — most likely during an E3 presentation. We’ll let you know what this game looks like in six months!