News

A bit of Final Fantasy XVI news leaked out during last night's "Letter from the Producer LIVE" for Final Fantasy XIV: Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, who has been translating Final Fantasy XIV for quite some time now, is also now working on the translation for Final Fantasy XVI.

Along with being one of the translators at last year's Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest, Koji Fox has also written the lyrics to the some of the most beloved songs from XIV, including To the Edge.

More news about Final Fantasy XVI is due to be released this spring.

Source: Final Weapon

Naoki Yoshida, producer of Final Fantasy XVI, posted a message through various official sources today that the development of the game has been delayed by roughly half a year due to COVID-19. Because of the need for teams to work from home, there's been issues with communication coming out of the Tokyo office, which in turn has caused problems with asset deliveries from outsourced partners. In extreme cases, those deliveries have been cancelled.

The news wasn't all doom and gloom though; Yoshida stated the next big news drop is due for Spring 2022. Additionally, he listed the tasks they are currently working on:

• Increasing graphic resource quality
• Refining combat mechanics
• Fleshing out individual battles
• Putting the finishing touches on cutscenes
• Conducting overall graphical optimization

So while there have been delays, the game sounds like it has progressed fairly well into its development cycle.

Yoshida ended with an apology for not delivering more news in 2021 as had been previously stated, and thanked fans for their continued patience.

Source: Official Site

The Game Awards nominations have been announced, and Final Fantasy XIV Online has been nominated for two awards.

The first nomination is in the Best Ongoing category. The other nominees for Best Ongoing game are: Apex Legends; Call of Duty: War Zone; Fortnite; and Genshin Impact.

It's also been nominated in the Best Community Support category, with fellow nominees: Apex Legends: Escape; Destiny 2: Beyond Light; Fortnite; and No Man's Sky.

Other Square Enix games picking up nominations are Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, nominated for Best Narrative, Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure; and Life is Strange: True Colors, nominated for Best Narrative and Games for Impact.

The Game Awards will be hosted live from Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 9th. Gamers can vote on nominations at The Game Awards website.

Source: The Game Awards

Final Fantasy XIV's newest expansion, Endwalker, was due to release Tuesday, November 23rd, but has now had its release date pushed back by two weeks. The new release date is Tuesday, December 7th, with early access for those who pre-ordered happening Friday, December 3rd.

This reporter was watching the Live Letter where the news was announced, and Naoki Yoshida (affectionately known as Yoshi-P), producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV, seemed rather distraught at having made this decision as he kept repeating "I'm sorry" in Japanese. According to the official announcement, Yoshi-P made this decision to ensure the quality of the expansion would live up to his vision. He thought hard about cutting material, or breaking the expansion into several releases so they could still meet the scheduled release date, but ultimate decided against those ideas.

Along with the updated release date for Endwalker, we also received the schedule for the first two patches. Patch 6.01 is scheduled for Tuesday, December 21, 2021 and will bring the Pandæmonium raid, while Patch 6.05, scheduled for Tuesday, January 4, 2022 will include the raid's Savage version along with new tomestones and gear.

Finally, a new trailer for the expansion was shown. Here it is for your enjoyment:




Source: Final Fantasy XIV Lodestone

Square Enix's E3 presentation was this afternoon! Clocking in at forty-five minutes, most of the news featured other franchises, but there were some tidbits for Final Fantasy fans.

First up is Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster. Covering the first six main games, these titles (released individually) will be coming soon to Steam, Android and iOS, though a release date wasn't mentioned. No other information was released other than these promise to be "pixel perfect" remasters.

The other major announcement for Final Fantasy fans is Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, an upcoming action game in collaboration with Team NINJA from KOEI TECMO GAMES, creators of the NINJA GAIDEN and Nioh series. Coming in 2022 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One as well as PC, this spinoff appears to be heavily influenced by the original Final Fantasy game, although with new characters. Jack and his allies Ash and Jed throw open the gates to the Chaos Shrine, resolved to defeat Chaos. Take a look at the video here: YouTube

A free trial of this game is now available to download and play through June 24th.

The presentation also featured glimpses from Square Enix's mobile games, both current and upcoming. Seen were:

• the repeat collaboration between Final Fantasy I and War of the Visions:FFBE
• the upcoming fifth anniversary of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
• footage of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier
• a sample of NieR Reincarnation

There was also a short reminder about Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, showing footage of Yuffie, but no new information on future titles in that franchise.

Finally, they showed (old) teaser footage of their other upcoming games, including Forspoken, Final Fantasy XVI, and Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, but those of us wishing for further glimpses at these titles were left disappointed.

Source: The Verge, Square Enix