Final Fantasy 16 Won’t Be Open World

Final Fantasy 16 won’t be an open-world game, but that doesn’t mean it will be super linear either, according to the game’s producer. Final Fantasy XV took the series into the open-world genre, allowing players to freely explore the world and even use a car to drive around the map. Final Fantasy VII Remake still allowed some exploration, but it was far more limited and not as expansive as XV, which isn’t too surprising given it was trying to still remain faithful to the original game. It seems like Final Fantasy 16 won’t be carrying on the precedent set by the previous mainline game, however.

According to producer Naoki Yoshida when speaking to IGN, Final Fantasy 16 won’t be open-world and will instead focus on “area-based design” that allows the game to have a more global feel. This allows Square Enix to create multiple focused areas, as opposed to one big area that is limited by its overall location i.e. a city or small country. As of right now, it remains to be seen how big some of these areas will be, but Yoshida did note that the game will be inspired by other open-world games, so it will retain some of that feeling.

“We’ve found in our extensive user research that many of the younger generation of gamers have never played a Final Fantasy or don’t have any interest in the series,” says Yoshida. “To create a game that might excite and resonate not only with our core fans, but also with that new generation, we played a LOT of games ourselves, and so yes, in [Final Fantasy 16] you’ll find inspiration from recent triple-A open world RPGs.”  

There’s a lot of Final Fantasy on the way. Final Fantasy 16 got a new trailer at the recent PlayStation State of Play, it was confirmed that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will release next winter, and we’re even getting a third game in the remake saga. There should be plenty for fans to dig into in the next few years.

Final Fantasy 16 releases next summer on PlayStation 5. What do you think of the game not being open world? Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.