Final Fantasy 16 Will Feature a Semi-Open-World Map

There’s been a little pushback on the open world game formula over the past couple years, and Square Enix has been paying attention. During the latest Final Fantasy 16 preview event, producer Naoki Yoshida touched on whether the upcoming mainline entry to Square Enix’s flagship RPG series will be open world.

Speaking with VG 24/7, Yoshida stated:

“In past interviews, I have mentioned that Final Fantasy 16 is not an open-world game. But what exactly does that mean? Does it mean it’s linear? Again, not exactly.”

Detailing further, he stated that the time wanted to bring a wide variety of environments with the highest possible quality, but didn’t want to do that for every locale the player might visit. As such, the team focused on the areas they felt needed it while letting others be more simplistic in design.

For those that want a big map, Yoshida notes that the game world is still huge. It simply won’t be as massive as some other open-world games and should feature more attention to detail in key areas such as towns, dungeons, and caves. “We wanted to take full advantage of the PlayStation 5’s power to create a massively detailed world that was only possible in a video game,” Yoshida mentioned.

Past Final Fantasy games were large even dating back to the SNES era. Where things got a bit out of control was in Final Fantasy 15, which featured a humongous world that didn’t have much in it. It looks as if all the correct lessons were taken from that project, which is probably why it hasn’t been another decade in between installments. Look for more Final Fantasy 16 coverage here on GameSkinny.