Exclusive: Final Fantasy 16’s Developers Open Up About Game of Thrones
Final Fantasy XVI is less than a year away, but Square Enix has left most of the details to be speculated on by the fans. A recent trailer offered more hints about what to expect, including a hint of what crystals – a Final Fantasy standby – mean for the world. Now Final Fantasy XVI’s development team are delving deeper than ever into their upcoming RPG, opening about topics ranging from persistent comparisons to Game of Thrones to questions about representation for Black characters and other people of color.
For this interview, IGN spoke with director Hiroshi Takai, localization director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, and creative director Kazutoyo Maehiro, with producer Naoki Yoshida also weighing in for some extended thoughts of his own. They talk about it being the first M-rated game in the series, how sidequests will work, and several other topics. They also open up a bit more about its female protagonist, speculated to be Jill Warrick, and how Clive will interact with his companions.
“While [Final Fantasy XVI] does feature a prominent female protagonist, I would hazard the similarities end there. Celes and Aerith are unique in that so much of their games’ narratives revolve around their own respective stories,” Koji Fox says. “[Final Fantasy XVI’s] story, however, has, since the early concept phase, always been about Clive. But as is the case with all Final Fantasys, Clive’s story is about encounters. It is about companions. It is about relationships and how, through those relationships, Clive grows. No Final Fantasy character worth his or her salt ever saved the world on their own. Luckily, Clive won’t have to try, as he, too, is not alone.
You can find the rest of the interview below, and make sure to check out our conversation with Yoshida from earlier this year. Final Fantasy XVI is slated to release in summer 2023.
IGN: Can you talk about the role of the crystals in Final Fantasy XVI, and how they are both similar and different to previous games in the series?
Hiroshi Takai, Main Director: I believe they are similar to crystals in previous installments in the way they are crystallizations of aether, the source of all magic. In Final Fantasy XVI, people mine the crystals and consume them – as though they are deposits of resources, like oil. Perhaps you could say the way that crystals are portrayed as a vital and familiar part of people’s way of life is something that’s distinctive about their depiction in Final Fantasy XVI.
The nations of Valisthea conduct large-scale wars over these crystals, something deeply connected to the story, so I hope people will be excited to discover more. Although, the crystals may have another, significant meaning…
IGN: The mural in the trailer shows Bahamut, Titan, Garuda, Shiva, Leviathan, and Ifrit. Are those all of the Eikons? Can we expect some surprise summons in Final Fantasy XVI?
Kazutoyo Maehiro, Creative Director; Original Screenplay: The mural shown at the end of the trailer we recently revealed doesn’t recount the story being told in Final Fantasy XVI – it was painted in an ancient age, many eons ago. So, you can consider these Eikons appearing in the mural the Eikons that have historically existed in Valisthea. I can’t say anything more about the mural at this point in time – and it may actually be a little tricky to answer whether all those Eikons shown in the mural will appear… regardless, any more than this is still a secret, haha. Eikons are at the core of Final Fantasy XVI’s story.
Unlike the Summons of other installments in the series, there aren’t too many of them, nor are there any hidden, surprise Eikons. But this is because the story focuses on the Eikons – not including any hidden Eikons or having a huge number of them means we can explore each
Eikon and their Dominant more thoroughly.
IGN: This is the first mainline Final Fantasy game to potentially get a Mature rating. Can you talk about why the team decided to make this game darker and more violent than its predecessors? What does it mean for the series as a whole?
Hiroshi Takai: In the early stages of development, we decided that we wouldn’t tell a juvenile story. Some of the major considerations were the age range of the players we expect to form our core audience, and also that we have an increased capability to portray things, in several meanings of the word. You say it’s a more “violent” direction – but the key point here is that we didn’t want to just make things more extreme, we wanted to show things more realistically and naturally.
The world of Final Fantasy XVI is wracked by endless wars between nations, so we inevitably had to include scenes of battle. And if a character doesn’t have any blood splatter on them after slashing someone with a sword, that ends up looking unnatural with modern graphical capabilities – which creates an even stronger sense of dissonance….
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