Final Fantasy 16 development has "entered the home stretch"

(Image credit: Square Enix)

A new Final Fantasy 16 trailer has arrived offering some more insight into the game's setting and story, and Square Enix has taken the opportunity to share an update on production.

"With regards to development, the team has turned the corner and entered the home stretch, and is currently concentrating its efforts on debugging, tweaking, polishing, and optimization," producer Naoki Yoshida says in a message to fans. (Admittedly, he has made similar comments in the past.)

"As the game edges closer to completion, the team has turned its full attention to debugging and final adjustments," director Hiroshi Takai says. "Now that things are starting to come together, the game is sizing up to be something truly special."

You can see the trailer, titled Ambition, for yourself below, but there are a few important details to take note of. One is a big focus on crystals - an important bit of Final Fantasy lore historically, though they've played much less of a part in modern iterations of the series. "We cannot live without the blessing of the crystals," we hear from one of the characters. "And the crystals work their magic through us." Meanwhile, the trailer's narrator asks "who shall claim their fading light?"

We're also introduced to two new characters. Dion Lesage is the Dominant of Bahamut, a dragoon who's "loved and respected by both his people and his troops, not least for the many times he has turned the tide of battle in their favor."

There's also Barnabas Tharmr, Dominant of Odin, the Eikon he used to conquer the eastern continent. As the official site explains, "now he has an army and navy that rival any in Valisthea at his disposal, yet still the king is drawn to where the fighting is thickest - riding into battle atop his spectral steed and sundering foes with his fabled black blade, or merely observing the unfolding chaos from the sidelines, a grisly gleam of fascination ever in his eyes."

Perhaps the most important part of the trailer comes near the beginning, when we see a dog wandering alongside the journeying party. Players were enamored with a puppy named Torgal in the game's earliest trailers, and Yoshida dropped some vague hints to IGN earlier this year that he could be a party member - something this new trailer might just back up.

Final Fantasy 16 is still due to launch for PS5 in summer 2023.

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