Final Fantasy 16 producer sparks confusion over PC port, but it's probably fine

Confusion over whether Final Fantasy 16 is coming to PC has arisen among fans following comments attributed to producer Naoki Yoshida surfacing online. 

Earlier this week, Yoshida appeared on a Final Fantasy 14 stream to participate in a mahjong tournament with several notable guests who have also worked on FF16 and other Square Enix projects. One clip doing the rounds online, as a result, involves Yoshida commenting on Final Fantasy 16 coming to PC, where he is quoted as saying that no one has said anything about that before chuckling and telling fans not to worry about it and to buy a PS5 instead – GamesRadar+ has taken a look at the quote, and has come away with the same translation. 

The clip has sparked some confusion among fans. It’s partly down to humour likely being lost in translation but also due to those comments going against the run of play – Square Enix hasn’t officially announced Final Fantasy 16’s plans, but signs point to a PC port being almost inevitable.

First things first, Final Fantasy 16’s reveal trailer at a PS5 Showcase initially mentioned it was coming to PC before the reference was removed. At the time, I reached out to Square Enix for comment about that and was told the developer had “no further information on if Final Fantasy XVI will be released on platforms other than the PS5” to share at that point. That was the same showcase where the Demon's Souls remake was unveiled. While it also included a scrubbed PC mention, it was swiftly clarified to be an error – to this day, the Demon's Souls remake still hasn’t graced any PC storefront. 

Since then, a short PlayStation ad highlighting upcoming games casually confirmed that Final Fantasy 16’s exclusivity window on the platform is six months – that mention is still there at the time of writing. One of Final Fantasy 16’s more recent trailers (below) also says the RPG won’t be available on other platforms until December 31, 2023.

Square Enix could just elect not to release the RPG on PC after that period, but we'll wager that's a tad unlikely, given every mainline Final Fantasy game is on Steam. We had to wait nearly 18 months to get Final Fantasy 15 on Steam, but Square Enix hasn't forgotten about PC storefronts since. Final Fantasy 7 Remake came to Steam after a short exclusivity period on the Epic Games Store, and a whole heap of Kingdom Hearts games have also been available on that platform since mid-2021.

Square Enix hasn't officially confirmed any PC plans for Final Fantasy 16 yet, though, given everything, it's hard to imagine an announcement not coming our way after the PS5 launch on June 22 at least.

We've rounded up some of the year's biggest releases in our new games 2023 feature, some of which are actually confirmed for PC.