Final Fantasy XVI isn’t out for almost a month, with a released pencilled in for June 22nd, but as we reported at the time the game had already gone “gold” nearly two months ago. After a couple of early delays, the team at Creative Business Unit III with the legendary Naoki Yoshida at the helm has seemingly managed to finish up development well ahead of time.
This has also resulted in a fairly uncommon situation for big, blockbuster AAA video game releases, because Final Fantasy XVI won’t have a day one update for players to download before they can dive into the game on launch day.
That’s according to a Game Informer report, where the outlet spoke to Final Fantasy XVI’s lead developers following a hands-on session with the game. According to Director, Hiroshi Takai, the studio isn’t working on a day one patch because it has confidence in the existing final build of the game. Takai also said that the team believes their game should be ready to go at launch, and not put players who don’t have access to the internet to download a big patch at a disadvantage.
It was stressed that CBU III is still testing the game daily in the event that something new and unexpected comes up that needs to be addressed, but with the way it’s looking right now, fans should be able to get playing right out of the gate.
A new hands-on highlights new areas of Final Fantasy XVI’s lavish, detail-rich world. Find out how its creators are making the fantastical settings of Valisthea feel real: https://t.co/221uiiHfJp pic.twitter.com/woKzS81cMp
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 22, 2023
It’s a little disheartening to suggest that this is a refreshing change from the norm, but it is. With the overwhelming majority of AAA games coming into their release deadlines red hot it’s almost expected that the first boot, and probably many after, will trigger an update of some kind. More and more, these updates have significant implications as well, sometimes drastically altering how a game performs compared to its pre-release or on-disc state, or fixing problems that could have a progress-halting, game-breaking effect on anyone playing unpatched.
To know that the Final Fantasy XVI that reviewers will play, the Final Fantasy XVI that those in regions where physical media still reigns supreme and/or access to high-speed internet is a privilege will play, is the same game that everyone else will be playing is great news. It’s also indicative of a development cycle that hopefully wasn’t plagued by crunch, and a creative vision potentially less compromised by time pressure.
At a time where it seems every big-budget game is delivered as good enough to meet what was probably a very unrealistic deadline and then fixed up after the fact, knowing that the team behind Final Fantasy XVI is genuinely happy with the product that they’ve created and has wrapped it with a bow and excitedly hidden it in a cupboard ready to gift to fans across the world on June 22nd is fantastic.
