Final Fantasy XVI

During The Game Awards 2023 Square Enix has announced Final Fantasy XVI downloadable content Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide. Echoes of the Fallen is now available for purchase on the PlayStation Store. The Rising Tide will be released in Spring 2024.

Echoes of the Fallen unlocks new story, battles, weapons, accessories, level cap and more. The adventure begins before the base game’s final battle, as strange, dark crystals begin to circulate on the black market. Players will follow Clive and company during their investigations as they encounter a group of suspicious traders, leading them to a long-abandoned Fallen tower known as the Sagespire and the terrible secrets that await within.

The Rising Tide will bring new challenges and more, including the confrontation between Clive and the legendary Eikon, Leviathan.

You can watch the announcement trailer on YouTube. Due to the age restriction the video can't be included in this article.

With the announcement of the downloadable content a update, version 1.21, was released which makes a number of changes and improvements to the game.

Version 1.21 patch notes

Additional Features

• Adds a new Inner Voice option to the Grand Cast menu, which can be viewed upon inquiring with Vivian about the State of the Realm.
  Hover the cursor over a character and press the touchpad to view their inner feelings toward their allies and enemies. See how each character's feelings change as the story progresses.

• Adds several new orchestrion rolls.
  These can be obtained from in-game vendors after progressing a certain way through the story.

Changes to Arcade Mode

• Adds a technical bonus feature that increases battle performance scores.
  Attacking enemies and performing a variety of battle techniques fills the technical bonus gauge, which increases your score multiplier each time it crosses a certain threshold. The gauge depletes over time or upon taking damage.

• Adds new accolades.
  These can be earned by clearing stages within a certain time limit or with a final battle performance score above a certain threshold.

• Adjusts ranking thresholds over individual legs and stages.
  The changes described above allow players to earn higher battle performance scores than they could previously. The ranking thresholds are adjusted to account for this.

• Introduces a new leaderboard.
  All scores earned after the update is installed will be recorded to this new leaderboard.

• Allows you to view leaderboards and rankings from previous versions.

• Adjusts the difficulty level of Ultimaniac stages.

• Adds and adjusts explanations of various features.

Changes to Training Mode

• Adds an Immediate Takedown option.
  With this option turned on, attacks will reduce an enemy's will gauge by 50%, allowing you to partially stagger enemies with a single attack, then fully stagger them with a second attack.

• Adds a Megaflare Level option.
  This option allows you to fix your Megaflare level to any value.

• Adds a Zantetsuken Level option.
  This option allows you to fix your Zantetsuken level to any value.

System-related Changes

• Adds a Photo Mode shortcut option.
  This option, accessible from the Game Settings tab of the System menu, allows you to launch Photo Mode by pressing the touchpad with two fingers.

• Adds the ability to enter Photo Mode from the pause screen.
  This allows photos to be taken during cutscenes, with certain exceptions.

• Adds the option to retry from the Game Over screen when Clive is defeated by a notorious mark.
  Retrying will return Clive to the point immediately before the battle with the notorious mark began.

• Allows you to examine the details of the rewards available from the Patron's Whisper in the hideaway.

• Adds the option to filter save data in the Load Game tab of the System menu.
  Press □ to cycle between the following filtering options: Show All Saves, Show Auto-saves, and Show Manual Saves.

• Adds a Credits option to the title menu.
  This option, which allows you to view the credits sequence, becomes available after completing the game.

• Adds and adjusts various UI elements.

Bug Fixes

Corrects the following issues:

• Several issues wherein graphical elements did not display correctly during cutscenes.
• Several issues wherein certain NPC animations were incorrect during certain quests.
• Several issues wherein certain NPCs became positioned incorrectly under specific conditions during certain quests.
• Several issues wherein progress became impossible in certain quests under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein quest objectives and destination markers did not display correctly in certain quests.
• Several issues wherein NPC dialogue was incorrect in certain quests.
• Several issues wherein the reward of ability points was incorrect in certain quests.
• An issue wherein the demontamer's armguards were impossible to obtain.
• Several issues wherein enemies did not behave correctly under specific conditions during battle.
• Several issues wherein collision detection did not behave correctly under specific conditions during battle.
• Several issues wherein the camera did not behave correctly under specific conditions during battle.
• Several issues wherein the frame rate dropped significantly during battle.
• Several issues wherein abilities or limit breaks did not trigger correctly under specific conditions during battle.
• Several issues wherein accessory effects did not trigger correctly under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein the menu did not display or update correctly in Chronolith trials.
• An issue wherein the conditions to achieve the Mark of the Jongleur accolades were incorrect in Chronolith trials.
• Several issues wherein the menu did not display or update correctly in Arcade Mode.
• An issue wherein Clive's clothing did not display correctly under specific conditions in Training Mode.
• Several issues wherein menu navigation did not behave correctly under specific conditions in Training Mode.
• Several issues wherein the AI of companion NPCs did not behave correctly.
• Several issues wherein parkour animations did not trigger correctly under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein graphical elements and collision surfaces were set incorrectly in explorable areas and replayable stages.
• Several issues wherein location names displayed at incorrect points in explorable areas and replayable stages.
• An issue wherein certain menu screens flickered when the Graphics Settings option was set to Frame Rate.
• Several issues wherein character animations did not trigger correctly under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein Active Time Lore elements did not update at the correct timing.
• Several issues wherein menu elements did not display or update correctly in Vivian's State of the Realm.
• Several issues wherein menu elements did not display or update correctly in Harpocrates's Thousand Tomes.
• Several issues wherein entries in the Thousand Tomes did not update at the correct timing.
• Several issues wherein Torgal's Animal Instinct did not function correctly under specific conditions.
• An issue wherein graphical elements did not display correctly in Photo Mode under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein areas failed to unlock on the world map under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein text and icons did not display correctly on the world map under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein the camera did not behave correctly under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein the wireless controller vibration and adaptive triggers did not function correctly under specific conditions.
• An issue wherein progress towards the trophy Here Be Rosfields did not display correctly under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein incorrect images and videos appeared in tutorial slides.
• Several issues wherein important notifications did not display correctly under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein audio elements did not trigger under specific conditions.
• Several issues wherein the game would freeze under specific conditions.
• Several minor text issues.

Final Fantasy XVI is available for PlayStation 5. A demo is available where you can play the beginning of the game and a later dungeon. The PC version is currently in development.

Recently Square Enix has released the first after launch patch for Final Fantasy XVI, version 1.03. This patch fixes some issues and adds some new functionality.

Below you can find the patch notes:

This update fixes some issues and adds some new functionality. We recommend that you install this update before playing the game.

This update:

• Adds the following items to the System tab of the Main Menu:
  • Motion Blur Strength – Allows the player to adjust the strength of the motion blur effect when the character or camera is in motion. The default setting is the maximum of 5. This can be lowered to reduce the strength of the motion blur effect, or set to 0 to turn it off completely.
  • Player Follow (Movement)
  • Player Follow (Attack) – Turning these settings off prevents the camera from automatically following the player while moving and attacking respectively.
• Changes the maximum setting of the Camera Sensitivity (Horizontal) and Camera Sensitivity (Vertical) items from 10 to 20.
• Adds three new controller layouts: types D, E, and F.
• Corrects an issue that affected the stability of some menus.
• Corrects some text issues.
• Adds the hashtag #FF16 when sharing screenshots or video clips on Twitter or YouTube.

Recenlty Square Enix also announced that Final Fantasy XVI has sold over 3 million copies.

During the Final Fantasy XVI Pre-Launch Celebration live event that was streamed yesterday Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XVI will actually be getting a day one patch.

The patch will be around 300 MB and will contain the following fixes and optimizations:

• Fix a control flag issue which can make progress impossible under very specific circumstances;
• Fix an issue wherein the game could close unexpectedly under very specific circumstances;
• Optimize performance in several places;
• Fix some minor text errors.

At first the development team said that they've worked hard to release the game without a day one patch for which they apologised during the live event.

Also during the live event producer Naoki Yoshida mentioned that the game was initially planned to ship on two discs, but about six months before the release the development team they managed to fit the game on one disc to reduce production costs.

Final Fantasy XVI will be released on 22 June 2023 exclusively on PlayStation 5. In Japan digital billboards will be on display starting tomorrow and also the below TV commercial will be aired.

Today the month of June has started and there are only 3 weeks left until the release of Final Fantasy XVI. As promised earlier, a demo will be available prior to the launch.

It seems that users on Reddit has noticed that the demo has appeared on the PlayStation Store, when you are using the mobile app. I can not reproduce it here, but it is possible that you need to have pre-ordered the game  to make it appear.

Most likely the demo will be available during or after the Final Fantasy XVI pre-launch event that will take place in Los Angeles on 11 June 2023 that will be live streamed.