A recent wave of Final Fantasy XVI interviews has been making the rounds, revealing a lot of new information about the game.
In an interview with Famitsu, producer Naoki Yoshida shared that the game is about 95% complete and that the team is diligently playing the game and constantly improving elements of the game. “The scale of the game is large, so debugging takes a lot of time. Almost all programmers are fiddling with code to fix bugs,” says Yoshida.
Yoshida further adds that a release date may be announced later this year, when asked about the Summer 2023 window. “We plan to release the information again later this year, so I think we can say it at that time. I don’t think it’s going to be over the summer, so I think it’s okay (laughs).”
Additionally, an interview from 4Gamer has outlined the inclusion of a New Game+ mode for Final Fantasy XVI, as director Hiroshi Takai mentions that players can play the game again with unlocked abilities and the usual trimmings that come along with a New Game+, such as keeping your equipment and levels intact. Enemy difficulty will also be adjusted accordingly.
As it stands, there will also be several difficulty options such as a “Story” mode that will allow players to focus on the story while diminishing the challenge of the battles.
Final Fantasy XVI is scheduled to come out in Summer 2023.
