‘Final Fantasy 16’ won’t be a fully open-world game

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that the game won’t be a fully open-world title.

Despite Final Fantasy 15 being an open-world adventure, Yoshida said that Square Enix decided to “avoid” the format for Final Fantasy 16.

“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,” he said in a new interview with IGN.

Yoshida also confirmed that the puppy from the very first trailer for Final Fantasy 16 is in fact “more wolf than dog and his name is Torgal. As for him being a party member, you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Elsewhere he confirmed that the next instalment of the Final Fantasy franchise will feature party-based combat. “For most of his journey, Clive will be accompanied by one or more companions,” Yoshida said, before explaining that these companions will get involved in battles as well as trading “banter” with Clive. However, the party members will be AI-driven so as to allow players to focus solely on controlling Clive.”

Earlier this month, a new trailer for Final Fantasy 16 was released that saw protagonist Clive Rosfield getting involved in “high-octane battles” and “wielding a full arsenal of attacks unique to the game’s many Eikons (summons).”

The game will release summer 2023 on the PlayStation 5.

In other news, it’s been confirmed that PlayStation will be avoiding Gamescom 2022, one of the largest industry showcases in the world.

It comes as Nintendo, Take-Two Interactive and Wargaming have also all pulled out of the event, which is due to run August 24-28.