Final Fantasy XVI, the next major main entry in the historical franchise, is nearing release in mid-2023, as eager fans are slowly receiving new information and watching the game. Most recently, the world received the new Dominance trailer that gave us our best insight into the game’s combat to date, as well as the unique relationship between the game’s setting of Valisthea and the basic summoning creatures of the series. here called Eikons.
It was with a keen interest in these Eikons and their place in the history and gameplay of Final Fantasy XVI that I entered into a very special talk with the game’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, with location director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, along with the translation. Final Fantasy fans will no doubt recognize Yoshida-san, affectionately known as Yoshi-P, and his Creative Business Unit III team as responsible for the mammoth success of the Final Fantasy XIV MMO and its acclaimed expansions by criticism. This makes him a very busy guy, but even in the short time we’ve had to talk, it’s obvious Yoshida-san’s passion for creating something special in Final Fantasy XVI while opposing some conventions that the franchise has been around for a long time.
Naoki Yoshida (left) and Koji Fox (right)
We’ve put together a couple of separate pieces looking at the juiciest excerpts from my talk with Yoshida and Fox that you can check out here, but keep reading the full interview:
The recent Dominance trailer focused heavily on summonses, or Eikons, which have traditionally only been supporting characters in battle. How did Eikons become such an important part of the FFXVI world and what do they mean for the game’s narrative?
Naoki Yoshida: Simply put, the Eikons of Valisthea can be compared to what you might call weapons of mass destruction or nuclear bombs. And so, within the world of Valisthea, there are many different nations and each nation has one of its own Eikons with the being that awakens within a single individual, although the rules on how and within whom awakens the ‘Eikon differ from each other.
So the person who lives in this Eikon, we call him the Dominant, and they can invoke the incomparable power of the Eikon by literally transforming into it. As you know in Final Fantasies above, you would always have a summoning job that would use magic to summon the being from a different plane, but this time, the Dominant actually invokes the power of the Eikon by becoming the same Eikon. .
Another key word in our history is the Mother Crystals and the Mother Crystals of these kingdoms are what can be called a kind of oil fields, in the term they supply the earth with the ether which is basically energy. which is used to feed magic. .
The fact is, however, that the ether containing the crystals has begun to dry out. And this has caused some nations to basically try to invade other nations in an attempt to take control of the remaining Mother Crystals. And so far, the Eikons have never really been used, because again, they’re like nuclear bombs, so don’t use them. You just have them, and it creates that kind of confrontation. But now, to take control of these Mother Crystals of other nations, some nations have begun to use and deploy these Eikons and basically bring the kingdom to chaos, and this is one of our main focal points of our narrative.
And to know exactly why we decided to make a game that revolved around the call, well, we thought it would be unique and exciting to have a game where players could control an invocation on their own scale, as it is something that the series it hasn’t really deepened and it hasn’t really explored yet.
What motivated the team to revisit this darker, “classic” fantasy theme instead of fans of the modern or steampunk styles of the latest Final Fantasy games?
Naoki Yoshida: As you know, one of the defining features of the Final Fantasy series is that it tends to experience dramatic changes in its world, its characters, and its battle systems with each entry.
That being said, many of the people we spoke to during our recent round of user research that we did in conjunction with the development of Final Fantasy XVI, this research mentioned that players are beginning to notice that the style that has been used in many recent posts was starting to get a bit static. As you mentioned in your question, it became very heavy science fiction and looked the same. That was one of the reasons we decided to mix things up and go back to a slightly more classic medieval fantasy style. Again, not just for the fans, but also for us as developers to do something different than what had been done in the last few years.
And while what I just told you is the main reason we decided to go back to this classic style of medieval fantasy, the other reason is simply that in our development team many of our core members, myself included, simply we enjoy this style. the best. And we really wanted to make a game of this style for us too.
The combat in Final Fantasy XVI seems much more real-time and skill-based than previous games, can you tell us a little bit about how combat works and why you went in that direction?
Naoki Yoshida: To answer your question easily, for this entry in the series we will go with real-time action for our battle system.
Although the Final Fantasy series has used many different types of battle systems throughout its 35-year history, this will be the first major game in the series to incorporate this type of real action. And one of the reasons we decided to go this route and do it is basically to show that it could be done. Once again, not only for the fans, but also for us as developers, to show the young developers of Square Enix that it’s okay, you know, to take this kind of challenge and make this kind of game, make a new not. in this direction. And we believe that this will allow more opportunities for the development team and for the series to move forward.
There is another reason why we decided to opt for this type of battle system, and the reason is a bit more complicated. Since the Final Fantasy series has been around for a long time, it has a lot of fans like I mentioned before, but these fans have their own idea of what the games should incorporate and what they want and expect from the series. Some will say, you know, “Final Fantasy must take turns,” while others will say, “No, no, Final Fantasy must have cutting-edge technology and the best graphics,” but often these opinions clash and actually they are the opposite of each other and may not go well together.
Having a very static turn-based system with very, very realistic graphics does not combine very well. And so, basically, it’s very difficult and even impossible to develop a Final Fantasy that includes everything that’s on everyone’s wish list.
On the other hand, you have those players who may never have experienced a Final Fantasy game. Many of the younger players who know nothing about the series, or when they hear the name Final Fantasy think “Oh yeah, this isn’t a game for me, it’s a game for the older generation.” So we wanted to create something that could bring together existing fans as well as the younger generation and new players.
So to create a game that feels good for both existing and new fans and to bring them together, we decided to make our main goal something that we believe has been a staple of the series since first game. Something I felt when I played that first Final Fantasy. And that is to make the game look like you are playing a movie while incorporating the speed and excitement that one would experience or expect from an experience like this. And we felt that this real-time action was necessary to achieve this.
In the trailer it seems that Clive can switch between different styles or shapes based on Eikons, can you tell us about this system or how Clive gets these skills?
Naoki Yoshida: Since it’s an important point in the plot, I really can’t talk about how or why Clive can use the power of different Eikons. That being said, I can tell you that he uses the power of the Eikons as shown in the trailer, as you saw him switching between different abilities.
After claiming the power of an Eikon, Clive will be able to unlock the abilities of that Eikon in what we might call a “skill tree.” Clive will then earn points during regular battles and will be able to use those points to further unlock this tree’s abilities.
We want players to be able to use this system to customize their character according to their own style of play, use these points to buy the skills they want to use, or enhance the skills they really enjoy using. That said, we also want players to be able to decide something that really fits them, and so instead of making those point decisions final, we’ll give players a chance to pay back those points at any time and so many. as many times as they want so they can experiment with different versions until they come to one that best suits their style of play without having to worry about starting over.
We also saw some exciting-looking battles between two Eikons. Where did the idea for these come from and are they things that the player is actively involved in or can influence?
Naoki Yoshida: That idea came up before the company asked me to work on Final Fantasy XVI. I think this idea originally came up, I don’t remember if it was in 2014 or 2015, but it came back during the Tokyo Game Show. And I was there at the Tokyo Game Show for the Final Fantasy XIV booth.
So during that time, I was not only at the Final Fantasy XIV booth, but …