Release of Final Fantasy 16 delayed “by almost half a year”

The global release of FInal Fantasty 16 has been postponed though we have news of from Japanese video game producer, director and designer that the development of Final Fantasy 16 “next big reveal” taking place in spring of 2022.

Naoki Yoshida has said the pandemic has delayed development on the anticipated title.

“As the latest addition to the Final Fantasy series being developed for the PlayStation 5, Final Fantasy 16 has amassed a sizeable team composed of talented creators from around the world,” reads the update.

“However, in an effort to offset the effects of COVID-19, we’ve had to decentralise that workforce by permitting staff to tackle their assignments from home,” Yoshida continues. “This has unfortunately hampered communication from the Tokyo office, which, in turn, has led to delays in – or in extreme cases, cancellations of – asset deliveries from our outsource partners.”

The Square Enix title still has no release date, but this statement indicates that we will probably not see a release until late 2022 or more likely early 2023, with the next “big reveal” for the title will be taking place in spring of 2022 according to Yoshida.

Yoshida said back in October of this year that the finishing touches were being put on Final Fantasy 16, with the main design completed. Yoshida’s more recent message states that graphic resource quality, combat mechanics, individual battles, finishing up cutscenes and overall graphic optimisations still need to be done.

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After speculation that Yoshida was too busy to work on both acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 and the upcoming Final Fantasy 16, he assured that “this is absolutely not true, I am desperately working on it, so I hope you’ll stick with me from here on out.”

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