Between Final Fantasy VII Remake and now Final Fantasy XVI, there’s been a trend of keeping numbered Final Fantasy games exclusive to PlayStation consoles for a limited time. Anyone who doesn’t own a PlayStation 5 but wants to get their hands on XVI is likely wondering when that exclusivity will run out. Now we know: Final Fantasy XVI is exclusive to PlayStation 5 for six months.
The news comes from a new Twitter ad from the official PlayStation account. The 30-second spot includes gameplay snippets from the likes of The Last of Us Part I and God of War Ragnarok. When Final Fantasy XVI flashes by, we briefly see the Ifrit and Phoenix summons, as well as some telltale text at the bottom of the screen: “Final Fantasy XVI anticipated summer 2023. PS5 exclusive for six months.” This is the first time we’ve been given any time frame for the exclusivity, but for reference, Final Fantasy VII Remake was PlayStation-only for a year before coming to PC on Epic Games Store and then Steam.
There’s been a request from Final Fantasy fans to bring XVI to Steam as well in the wake of PlayStation 5 price hikes in some territories — they didn’t want to be priced out of playing the new game. Fortunately, it seems that anyone waiting for a PC release will only have to do so for six months. As for other platforms like Xbox, Final Fantasy VII Remake still isn’t available there, so we expect a similar situation with XVI.
The only question now is, six months from what? The Final Fantasy XVI release date hasn’t been announced yet, but producer Naoki Yoshida says we should know by the end of the year. He also recently caught flak when explaining the game’s lack of diversity — it’s not for a good reason. Similarly, some fans have bemoaned the lack of turn-based combat and an open-world setting in the game.
