Naoki Yoshida has started interviewing about Final Fantasy XVI, the new chapter of the famous JRPG series coming out next summer in an exclusive PS5 storm. In the first two trailers of the game, released in September 2020 and early June 2022, fans have noticed several scenes aimed at a slightly more adult audience. Yoshida has confirmed that this new chapter will mature in themes and interactions between characters who will not compromise.
“One of the main themes explored in the narrative of Final Fantasy XVI is the inevitable clash of values and ideals that comes when people with different ideas come together in one room,” Yoshida told GameSpot. “What is right and what is wrong? Once again, as we focus so much on the Dominants, and as they play such an important role in this story, you will see what they think is right for the world and how this should be handled. Players will understand those motivations and reasons behind each fight and subsequently have to go even deeper and into darker themes when it comes to citizens:
To deal with issues of this type, the team could not compromise, so the classification of this chapter will be higher than in the past: “The nudity shown in the trailer? We could say that compared to the past – and I’m not just talking about the Final Fantasy series, but video games in general – the classifications are much stricter about what can and cannot be shown, and I agree. Telling an adult story when there are all these restrictions is difficult because maybe you want to show something at some point, but because of the classification, you have to move the camera, and the moment is ruined. And so, this time around, to make sure we could tell the story we wanted to tell the way we wanted to tell it, we decided to pursue a higher classification. But I repeat, this is not an excuse to make the game unnecessarily violent or explicit; we believe that it is a necessary choice to be able to explore all those mature themes that we wanted to tell “.
Continuing, Yoshida has revealed some details on the plot, stating that – like in The Attack of the Giants- Much emphasis will be placed on the role of the Rulers, the men and women who can control the power of the Eikon, and on how each Kingdom and each citizen sees and treats these people. As for the protagonist Clive Rosfield, he will clash with some Dominants and get along with others, and the game will follow his exploits in three phases: adolescence, twenty, and thirty years. Yoshida went on to say that since events will be told that will span over the decades, there will be many background events that will require attention and some side missions that will allow players to delve into them. Of course, for lovers of the lore, there will be no shortage of documents to read in-game and the various compendia dedicated to monsters and characters.
Discussion about this post