After several months of silence, Final Fantasy XVI Producer Naoki Yoshida posted an update to Twitter about Square Enix’s hotly anticipated entry into the storied Final Fantasy franchise. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, development has fallen half a year behind, and the team continues to face hurdles producing the game, Yoshida explains. And while his team spent most of 2021 addressing issues with remote work and development, it has lead to the game being pushed further out. Yoshida says the team plans on a big spring 2022 reveal.
You can read his message by following the link above, or below in full:
Greetings, everyone,
When last we spoke, I promised I would have more information on FINAL FANTASY XVI sometime later in 2021. However, I regret to inform you that I will be unable to keep that promise as complications stemming from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have delayed the game’s development by almost a half year.
As the latest addition to the FINAL FANTASY series being developed for the PlayStation 5, FINAL FANTASY XVI has amassed a sizeable team composed of talented creators from around the world. However, in an effort to offset the effects of COVID-19, we’ve had to decentralize that workforce by permitting staff to tackle their assignments from home. This has unfortunately hampered communication from the Tokyo office, which, in turn, has led to delay in – or in extreme cases, cancellations of – asset deliveries from our outsource partners.
That said, we have spent much of 2021 addressing this issue, and hope to see its impact to a minimum by the new year, allowing us to better focus on the tasks at hand: increasing graphic resource quality, refining combat mechanics, fleshing out individual battles, putting the finishing touches on cutscenes, and conducting overall graphical optimization. Our primary goal now is to be as hands on with the game as possible in order to see it fully polished.
So that leaves us with the question, when can we expect the next round of information? Well, I am happy to announce the current plan is to conduct our next big reveal in spring of 2022 as we seek to build excitement leading up the game’s eventual release.
I deeply apologize to all those who have been looking forward to learning more about FINAL FANTASY XVI, and thank you for your continued patience while we focus our combined efforts on development.
This isn’t the first time this year Yoshida has had to apologize for delaying a game’s release. In late November, Final Fantasy XIV saw its much-anticipated launch of Endwalker delayed by two weeks due to the ongoing pandemic, as well.
