Square Enixpublishedon June 06, 2025 via the the Japanese PlayStation Blog a newFinal Fantasy 16interview with Naoki Yoshida alias YoshiP, revealing new development details on the upcoming PS5 JRPG.
The core staff ofFinal Fantasy XVIis quite plural: Masayoshi Soken ofFinal Fantasy XIVfame is composing the music. The game is directed by Hiroshi Takai, who worked on the battle graphics of theRomancing SaGagames, and was most notably the director ofLast Remnant, which was a greatSaGagame in everything but name. (Most notably thanks to its PC version which greatly improved the game over its original Xbox 360 release.) Moreover,Final Fantasy XVI’s battle director isRyota Suzuki, who worked onDevil May Cry VandDragon Dogma’s battle systems at Capcom.
However, the cornerstone of theFinal Fantasy XVIdevelopment team is definitely its producer, Naoki Yoshida, who is also the producer and director ofFinal Fantasy XIV. Just like many producers in Japanese media (and in Idol culture), Yoshida’s name is often shortened with a P for “Producer”, giving him his nickname YoshiP. I translated below the biggest highlights from his new interview on the Japanese PS Blog.
Final Fantasy XVI: Naoki Yoshida Reveals New Early Development Details
When Naoki Yoshida and his Creative Business Unit III were asked to make the next mainlineFinal Fantasygame, he was honored but didn’t immediately accept. He felt that it would affect his work negatively if he became the director ofFinal Fantasy XVIon top of already being the producer and director ofFinal Fantasy XIV. So he picked someone else for the job.
Being anFFdirector is stressful, and YoshiP wanted to be sure to pick the right person. He ultimately picked Hiroshi Takai. The development ofFinal Fantasy XVIinitially began with four members including Naoki Yoshida and Hiroshi Takai, and they decided on the game’s core concepts, battle system, themes and lore. After that, they made a small team to work on the battle system and graphics with a scrap and build approach until they found what worked best.
YoshiP’s main concern duringFF16’s early development was making sure at all times thatFF14’s development was unaffected, only picking a very small amount of theFF14core staff to work onFF16.
YoshiP also mentioned there’s a hidden meaning behindFinal Fantasy XVI’s logo that he can’t talk about yet. And reconfirmed that as usual the logo was designed by Yoshitaka Amano.
YoshiP: We Have One Year Left To Finish Final Fantasy 16
Right now,FF16is playable from beginning to end but there’s still a lot to do. YoshiP explained they’re currently recording the voice acting for some languages other than English and Japanese. They’re also adjusting the game’s difficulty, improving the cutscenes, debugging, etc.
When asked about how he’s balancing his workload betweenFF14andFF16, YoshiP explained there are several project managers and assistant producers helping him out and making sure he’s not overworked with a crazy schedule.
TheFinal Fantasy XVIOST is not finished yet and Masayoshi Soken is still working on it. He also has his own personal manager tomake sure he doesn’t overexert himself.
YoshiP mentioned his favorite Summon overall inFFis Bahamut and it’s one of the reasons why it played a big role inFFXIV.He didn’t answer who’s his favorite Summon inFF16though to avoid fueling fan speculations.
YoshiP also explained that thanks to being developed for PS5,Final Fantasy XVIwill not only have incredible graphics but also propose a seamless experience, thanks to its story, direction, the real-time battle system, and the PS5’s super fast loadings.
That’s all for the interview. Keep in mind this is only a short summary I made after reading through it. An official English version of the interview will probably be published in a few hours on the English PS blog.
As a side note, the tweet for the interview was published 12 hours early by the Japanese PlayStation blog Twitter, who had mistakenly scheduled it out for midnight instead of noon JST. We all had to wait 12 hours until the interview actually became available.
Final Fantasy XVIwill be out on PS5 sometime during Summer 2023. If you’re not in the global north, that should mean sometime between June and September 2023.
