Final Fantasy 16 looks pretty good, huh? Our own Alex Donaldson praised the game in his preview that went live yesterday, and (in a previous preview) I didn’t have a bad word to say about it either. By all accounts, this is going to be a stunner. A true PlayStation 5 tour de force. And the developers seem equally confident in the game.
In addition to the brilliant comments we saw from developers during the media tour (giving us gems like “Final Fantasy 16 is going to contain Geordies”), there was something specific about a big Game Informer piece of coverage that’s been picked up and skimmed over a bit over the past few days: Final Fantasy 16 won’t have a Day One patch.
Now you might be thinking that’s a bit odd – off the top of my head, I can’t think of any massive triple-A game of this scale that has released in the last few years without a Day One patch. Even Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had one, so Nintendo isn’t immune to this new habit.
Director Hiroshi Takai noted in an interview with Game Informer that there are currently no plans to update the more-action-than-RPG at launch. Takai noted that the game has been in the works for so long (and had so many delays) that it’s in such a confident place that it doesn’t need a Day One patch. Imagine that.
This does not mean that the game will not receive updates. There may be elements of the title that will not be suitable for the general public when the game launches, for example, and the developers may want to adjust this. The team may want to address some difficulty options or rebalance a ridiculous end-game boss when your least favorite YouTuber discovers some gross cheese to one-hit kill.
Whatever happens, though, it looks like Square Enix is ​​pretty confident that you won’t have to download a glaring 9GB patch before you can start playing on day one, because this Final Fantasy – vastly different from Final Fantasy 15, for example – looks like it’s going to be finished at launch.
Final Fantasy 16 will be released on June 22, 2023 on PlayStation 5. It’s unclear if the game will be coming to PC or other consoles in the future (but it won’t be coming anywhere else for at least six months).
