Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida confirms it won’t be open world

A new interview with Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has gone all in on details on the upcoming Square Enix title, including whether the game will be open world.

Earlier this month, we finally got a good look at Final Fantasy 16 in action. Paired with some exciting looking gameplay, we also got a release window of summer 2023. So far, everything is shaping up pretty nicely for the next major instalment in the franchise.

Now, in a new interview with IGN, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida provided some details on companions, summons, and more. 

Whether there is a party in the game or not has been a big question for many fans of the series. Thankfully, it does sound like you will have some friends join protagonist Clive on his journey.

We didn’t want to overwhelm users in our newest trailer, so we focused solely on Clive’s battles,” said Yoshida. “That said, for most of his journey, Clive will be accompanied by one or more companions. 

These companions will participate in battle, as well as trade banter with Clive. That said, the party members will be AI-driven so as to allow players to focus solely on controlling Clive.

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Open world Final Fantasy – what else did yoshida say?

Combat also sounds like it’s had a lot of thought put into it. First of all, fans of Final Fantasy 7 Remake shouldn’t expect similar gameplay. “[Final Fantasy 16] is a completely new game with a completely different concept,” said Yoshida, talking about how Remake was inspired by the original Final Fantasy 7’s mechanics.

In 16, marking a change for the series, acquiring different summons will let Clive perform different moves. “Translating traditional summon abilities into player actions, and allowing for the real-time swapping and chaining of these abilities in battle has allowed us to create a system that not only looks great, but feels really good to play.”

And in another interview with IGN, Yoshida also confirmed that 16 won’t be an open world game. “To create a game that might excite and resonate not only with our core fans, but also with that new generation… you’ll find inspiration from recent triple-A open world RPGs.

However, to bring a story that feels like it spans an entire globe and beyond, we decided to avoid an open world design that limits us to a single open world space, and instead focus on an independent area-based game design that can give players a better feel of a truly ‘global’ scale.”

Final Fantasy 16 really sounds like it’s going to be an impressive new entry in the series, even if it isn’t the open world title many might want it to be.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our video of the week. 10 of the scariest horror games of all time are shown off. What is your favourite horror game?

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Featured Image Credit: Square Enix

Source: IGN, IGN