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Final Fantasy XVI: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Final Fantasy XVI
On the 14th of June 1992, a young boy named Clive Rosfield stood in the ruins of his home, watching the sky turn black as a fire Eikon named Ifrit incinerated his brother Joshua. This moment, the catalyst for a decade-long quest for vengeance, was not merely a plot point but the emotional core of a game that would redefine the Final Fantasy franchise. The story begins with Clive, the firstborn son of Rosaria's ruling family, who is passed over as successor when his younger brother Joshua becomes the Dominant of Phoenix. Clive, a Bearer blessed with some power from the fire Eikon Phoenix, serves as Joshua's bodyguard. The brothers live with their parents, Duke Elwin and Duchess Anabella, with Jill as their ward. The brothers accompany Elwin to a ceremony to awaken Joshua's powers when they are ambushed by Sanbreque soldiers. Elwin's death triggers Joshua's destructive awakening as the Phoenix, and an Eikon named Ifrit emerges moments later and kills the Phoenix, with Clive swearing revenge. Anabella, who despises Clive's lack of blessing, betrays Rosaria to preserve her bloodline and has Clive enslaved to Sanbreque's army. Thirteen years later, Clive is sent behind enemy lines during a fight between the Dhalmekian Republic and the Iron Kingdom to assassinate the latter's Dominant, revealed to be an enslaved Jill. Upon recognizing her, Clive deserts to free Jill, and the two are rescued by Cid, who agrees to help Clive search for Ifrit's Dominant. Tracking word of an unknown Dominant, they fight Benedikta, from whom Clive takes the power of her Eikon Garuda. A defeated and disturbed Benedikta is then attacked by bandits and transforms into a raging Garuda, which in turn triggers Clive to transform into Ifrit and kill her. While Clive briefly despairs at the fact that he is Ifrit and the one who killed Joshua, Cid encourages him to keep searching for the truth behind his transformation. After Clive and Jill see the full oppression inflicted on Bearers and their sympathizers in occupied Rosaria, they join Cid in a quest to destroy the nations' Mothercrystals, which are causing the Blight by draining aether from the land. They infiltrate Sanbreque's capital, but within its Mothercrystal are faced by a being called Ultima, who mortally wounds Cid before the Mothercrystal is destroyed. When Ultima attempts to possess Clive, Joshua, who survived Ifrit's attack due to the Phoenix's powers, redirects Ultima into himself. Hugo, who was in love with Benedikta, is manipulated by Barnabas's agents into seeking revenge against Cid for her death. Five years later, Clive, now using the title of Cid and carrying on Cid's mission, destroys the Iron Kingdom's Mothercrystal with Jill, who takes revenge on her enslavers. With Sanbreque having occupied the Crystalline Dominion for its Mothercrystal, Anabella has Dion replaced as heir to the throne with Olivier, her son by Sanbreque's emperor Sylvestre. Hugo invades Rosaria to lure out Cid, prompting Clive to mutilate Hugo in a fight and reveal himself as Benedikta's killer. Desperate for revenge, Hugo transforms into a raging Titan. Having gained full control of Ifrit, Clive kills Hugo and destroys the Dhalmekian Mothercrystal. Under Joshua's advice, Dion stages a coup against Anabella, but in the process, Dion inadvertently kills Sylvestre and is transformed into a raging Bahamut by Olivier, revealed to be a vessel for Ultima. Clive destroys the Dominion's Mothercrystal as he reunites with Joshua, helping him defeat Bahamut. Now aware of Ultima, Dion kills Olivier, causing an unhinged Anabella to kill herself in despair. Barnabas later confronts Clive and reveals Ultima's plan to shape Clive into Mythos, a vessel for Ultima to inhabit. After Jill gives him the power of her Eikon Shiva, Clive kills Barnabas and destroys Waloed's Mothercrystal. Joshua's research into Fallen ruins reveals that Ultima's people seeded Valisthea with the Mothercrystals to siphon aether for a resurrection spell after succumbing to an earlier Blight. The Fallen and their human descendants were created to breed a vessel powerful enough to cast the spell. Clive, Joshua, and Dion assault Ultima's sky fortress of Origin, where Ultima's fragments merge to complete their plan. In the ensuing fight, Ultima kills Dion and rips his fragment out of Joshua, mortally wounding him. Joshua sacrifices himself to give Clive his Eikon. After killing Ultima, Clive heals Joshua's wounds and destroys the final Mothercrystal within Origin to remove magic from Valisthea. A post-credits scene in Valisthea's future, where magic is considered a myth, shows a family living in peace and owning a book credited to Joshua recording the game's events.
Final Fantasy XVI was released worldwide on the 22nd of June 2023. The Windows version released on the 17th of September 2024, and the Xbox Series X/S version released on the 8th of June 2025.
Who directed the development of Final Fantasy XVI?
Hiroshi Takai served as the main director of Final Fantasy XVI. Naoki Yoshida acted as the producer, while Kazutoyo Maehiro and Mitsutoshi Gondai formed the initial planning team.
What is the main story of Final Fantasy XVI?
The story follows Clive Rosfield, a Bearer who seeks revenge after his brother Joshua is killed by the Eikon Ifrit. Clive eventually destroys all Mothercrystals to remove magic from the world of Valisthea and defeats the entity Ultima.
How many songs are in the Final Fantasy XVI soundtrack?
The game features over 200 songs composed by Masayoshi Soken and additional composers. The main theme song, Tsuki Wo Miteita, is written and performed by Kenshi Yonezu.
Why was Final Fantasy XVI banned in Saudi Arabia?
Final Fantasy XVI was refused classification and banned in Saudi Arabia due to the portrayal of a relationship between two male characters. Square Enix refused to alter the game's content to suit the country's guidelines.
Concept work for Final Fantasy XVI began in 2015 after Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda approached producer Naoki Yoshida to develop the next mainline Final Fantasy game. Yoshida, who was finishing up production on the Final Fantasy XIV expansion Heavensward, understood the decision, as Creative Business Unit I had begun work on Final Fantasy VII Remake, but he needed to balance his work between Final Fantasy XIV and XVI. To lay the groundwork, Yoshida assembled a small planning team made up of himself, Kazutoyo Maehiro, and designer Mitsutoshi Gondai. Yoshida decided to become producer as his duties as both producer and director for Final Fantasy XIV were too time-consuming to take on a second large-scale project. Hiroshi Takai, who had also worked with Yoshida on Final Fantasy XIV, was selected as main director due to his experience with the series, his popularity among the development team, and his experience with visual effects. Full production on Final Fantasy XVI began in 2016 following Patch 3.4 of Heavensward, when Takai and Maehiro had found replacement staff for the next expansion Stormblood. The team received development support from Tai Yasue's Kingdom Hearts team in Square Enix Creative Business Unit I and a team at PlatinumGames led by Takahisa Taura. When creating both the world design and story, the team took criticism from Final Fantasy XV into account, specifically its open world design and story delivery problems. Takai's main goal for the game was an action-based combat that was easy to use and a mature, dark fantasy narrative that would tackle difficult themes. Yoshida wanted the game to reach players of all generations, rather than cater to specifically children or adults. He also wanted to distance the game from stereotypes commonly associated with the franchise, such as an anime-inspired art style and a story focusing on teenagers. It was initially developed as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, with a PlayStation 4 version being considered but abandoned so as not to limit the team's ambitions. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff needed to move to remote work, and production ended up half a year behind schedule due to communication issues with both Square Enix's head office and outsourcing companies. By late 2020, basic work on development and game scenarios was complete, and work was continuing on large scale resources like boss battles and development tools. By April 2022, development was in its final stages, with the team finalising side quests. It was fully playable from start to finish by June of that year, with development focusing on both polishing the game and voice recording for different languages. Initially planned as a two-disc release, the team managed to fit the game onto one disc to lower production costs and issues with mastering. Following release, the production team disbanded into other projects.
The Combat That Redefined A Legacy
When choosing the game's combat system, Yoshida conducted surveys within the Final Fantasy community, finding a division between fans of action-based and more traditional turn-based combat. After considering the potential impact on sales and modern gaming trends, he opted for a real-time action-based battle system. Yoshida admitted that this approach alongside other gameplay decisions risked polarizing series fans, but he believed that trying to please every fan by incorporating every element possible would run the risk of creating a half-baked compromise of a game. During the game's early production, the growing team had a system of designing gameplay tests and completely scrapping those that did not work, with Square Enix's upper management getting frustrated with the team's slow pace. The team decided against an open world, as it would have extended development time beyond a practical limit. Clive was made the only controllable character, with other party members driven by AI to simplify the player's control needs, though commands were included to allow for limited control. Outside the Kingdom Hearts team, Square Enix had little experience designing action combat. Yoshida sought out Ryota Suzuki, a Capcom veteran who had worked on the Devil May Cry series, as battle designer. The combat was designed around the idea of turning the mechanics of Final Fantasy V into a real-time battle system. The Eikon battles all had unique mechanics that were not reused in other fights. One of the earliest completed Eikon battles was with Garuda, with its foundation remaining mostly unchanged throughout production. There were no loading screens related to these setpiece battles, with gameplay and dialogue mixed into the final sequences. During the first half of development, an Eikon-based job system was intended for Clive, but it was dropped due to its restrictions on Clive's in-game appearance. Classic Final Fantasy jobs were used as a design inspiration for enemies and some NPCs. Yoshida brought Maehiro on board due to liking his writing style and world-building. While he accepted, Maehiro was also busy working on the Heavensward scenario and only started full work in 2016. The initial narrative drew inspiration from the early seasons of Game of Thrones, with other inspirations, including classic and contemporary anime, being used to prevent too many similarities. Maehiro created the initial script, which was checked and completed by Michael-Christopher Koji Fox. The game's dialogue was written before any of the game design was finalised. The script was written first in Japanese and then translated into English for initial dialogue and cutscene recording. The traditional medieval setting and style was chosen due to the team liking that style from classic Final Fantasy games, along with shifting away from the science fiction elements of more recent entries that was felt to be making the series static. Working from the concept of Eikons having prominence, Maehiro created the world map and based the nations around their local geography before creating the story around that setting. Yoshida always considered the story to be about Clive as well as the relationships he forms with different people through the warring nations. The story's central theme was the clashing of values. Clive and Dion were designed as aesthetic opposites, built around the archetypes of princes of darkness and light respectively. Crystals, a recurring feature in the series, were portrayed as an analogy to depleted fossil fuels, while Dominants and Eikons acted as analogies for weapons of mass destruction. A recurring marketing tagline, The legacy of the crystals has shaped our history for long enough, was meant to symbolise both a break from the science fiction style and a questioning of the crystals' role of bestowing power on humans. The Eikons were based on established and popular summons from across the Final Fantasy series, with Ifrit given a prominent role to contrast his earlier portrayal as a summon for beginners. Rather than using CGI, the story was told using real-time cinematics and in-game dialogue. The cinematics were handled by veteran series CGI director Takeshi Nozue.
The Soundtrack Of A Dying World
Masayoshi Soken served as the lead composer for the game, with additional compositions by Takafumi Imamura, Daiki Ishikawa, Saya Yasaki, and Justin Frieden, who also arranged many of Soken's compositions alongside Yoshitaka Suzuki, Ryo Furukawa, TomoLow, and Keiko. Soken had worked with Yoshida and Takai on Final Fantasy XIV, and was brought on board due to his familiarity with Yoshida, Takai, and Maehiro's world design style. He described the music as having a singular direction inspired by the overall dark fantasy setting, contrasting it against the variety and lighter tunes for XIV. Initially asked to provide 140, the game's final total was over 200 songs, including variations on established character themes. He attributed the large number of songs to the wide variety of characters and situations, wanting to avoid repeating the same music too often. Having worked for a long time on Final Fantasy XIV, which used multiple styles and paid homage to the entire series, Soken had trouble adjusting to composing for a single-player with a central narrative and musical theme. The music was the last element to be put in place, after the narrative and gameplay were set. One recalled episode from the music writing was a bardic song performed both in spoken and sung form by a trained singer and actor that would change depending on Clive's position in the story. The songs proved difficult as they needed localizing in several languages and recording a cappella, which resulted in issues with the pitch and tempo. A problematic track to include was the recurring Chocobo theme, which had an established light tone at odds with the setting. Rather than a full track, it was included as a short jingle. Vocal lyrics were written by Fox at Soken's request, with one of the vocal pieces being the victory theme. To create a sense of otherness without using a made-up language, Fox translated his lyrics in Ancient Greek. The main theme song, Tsuki Wo Miteita , Moongazing, is written and performed by Kenshi Yonezu. Both Yonezu and Yoshida expressed pleasure and enthusiasm at the collaboration, as each was a fan of the other's work.
The Release That Shook A Franchise
Rumors emerged in late 2019 about Final Fantasy XVI due to reports that Creative Business Unit III had finished groundwork for a major new title. The game was officially announced in September 2020. The trailer used real-time footage instead of pre-rendered cutscenes to show the game was well into development and not too far from release. The second trailer, released in June 2022 and showcasing the Eikons and related gameplay and story scenes, was ready that March. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine the previous month, the team decided to hold off releasing the trailer due to the game's portrayal of warring nations. Yoshida recorded a message to preface the trailer to separate it from world events. A third trailer, featuring more gameplay content and the release date, was published in December at The Game Awards 2022. The game was confirmed to have gone gold at the end of March 2023, and a demo covering the opening sequences and a later dungeon area was released on June 12. The localization was directed by Fox, with casting and recording handled by the UK branch of audio company Side. While the script was written in Japanese, in contrast to earlier entries, it was translated and motion captured in English. Due to this, there was no Japanese lip syncing, though the team unsuccessfully tried using an automated system to match the Japanese dub to the characters. Yoshida stayed away from the recording process both due to company policy and out of respect for the writers. All the English voice work was done by European actors, a non-standard approach to appeal to the North American market. The English and Japanese voice cast was announced in December 2022. Compared to other recent Final Fantasy titles, there was no plan for tertiary content such as downloadable content and books, instead having the entire story told within the game. Some Western media outlets criticized the team's explanation for the game's lack of ethnic diversity. Speaking on the portrayal of ethnic diversity in the game's world, Yoshida stated that its relative lack of diversity fitted into both its Medieval European setting and the in-universe isolation of Valisthea's lands. He admitted potential representation issues, but foresaw problems with both breaking player immersion in the setting, and problematic stereotypes being associated with protagonists or antagonists. The team ultimately decided to focus on the characters' personalities and narratives over their appearance. In a follow-up, he noted the game's world was inspired by cultures from around the world, acknowledging that some might disagree with their approach. There was a similar response inspired by Yoshida's reluctance to classify the game under the JRPG moniker, as he was uncomfortable with negative associations historically attached to the term. Final Fantasy XVI was released worldwide on the 22nd of June 2023. It was notably given high age ratings in major release regions. The game was refused classification and consequently banned in Saudi Arabia due to Square Enix's refusal to alter the game's content to suit the country's guidelines, namely the portrayal of a relationship between two male characters. The game had digital and physical Deluxe and Collector's Editions available for sale through Square Enix's online store, featuring additional in-game items and accessories such as an art book and steel case with unique art. A notable cross-promotion was a real-life replica of Clive's sword, created by blacksmith Tod Todeschini and exhibited at the Royal Armouries collection at the Tower of London from June 20 to July 19. The team wanted to deliver the game without the need for a software patch at launch, but ultimately the game received a patch to fix minor gameplay bugs and optimize performance. Copies of the game leaked a week prior to release, with Square Enix releasing a statement requesting those who had early copies not to spoil the game.
The Aftermath Of A Commercial Struggle
Final Fantasy XVI was the best-selling retail game in Japan during its week of release, with just over 336,000 physical units being sold. In the United Kingdom, the game was the best-selling title during its first week, but had notably lower physical sales than Final Fantasy XV. During its first month on release in the United States, the game was the second best-selling title behind Diablo IV. During its first week, Final Fantasy XVI sold over three million units. Reports and statements from Square Enix noted that despite strong sales the game did not meet the company's higher expectations, with this and other factors contributing to the company's share value falling. President Takashi Kiryu blamed slow adoption of the console, and stated the company would continue marketing it. In May 2024, Kiryu stated that Final Fantasy XVI and other major titles had failed to meet long-term sales expectations. It was the 16th best-selling video game in the US in 2023. The game was a timed exclusive for PS5 for six months following its release. While a Windows version was rumored based on that, Yoshida denied knowledge of such a port. He later confirmed a Windows version was planned, but would not appear quickly. The Windows version released on the 17th of September 2024. It came in a standard edition and a Complete Edition with both DLC expansions. A demo covering the game's opening section was released alongside the port's official announcement in August. The port was produced by the same team as the main game, with new expanded graphics and performance options included to account for different PC setups. Takai later commented that the port's release was delayed both by the exclusivity deal, and the fact that optimising for both PS5 and PC would have been an impossible workload for the team. A version for Xbox Series X/S was released on the 8th of June 2025, with the same editions as the PC release. After release, the game was patched with additional camera, control, and graphical options, and some graphical issues were corrected. In September 2023, Yoshida confirmed that two paid DLC episodes were in development, as well as officially confirming ongoing production of a PC version. Alongside this, a further update was released featuring new costume appearances for Clive, Jill, and Torgal. The first major DLC episode, Echoes of the Fallen, was released on December 7 and followed Clive's exploration of an ancient tower. The second, The Rising Tide, was released on the 18th of April 2024, and features the lost Eikon Leviathan. A simultaneous patch offered further control and graphical options, and a new combat challenge. The DLC was directed by Takeo Kujiraoka, who had previously worked on Final Fantasy XIII and the Dissidia subseries. While originally less focused on narrative, the team decided to focus the expansion scenarios on exploring hidden or unexplained elements of Valisthea prior to the game's ending. The two scenarios, one revolving around the Fallen civilization and one around Leviathan, were hinted at in-game but left unexplained in case post-launch content was approved. A crossover event with Final Fantasy XIV ran from April 2 to the 8th of May 2024. An art book featuring concept and promotional illustrations, The Art of Final Fantasy XVI, was released by Square Enix in 2023 in Japan and 2024 in the West. Two books are scheduled for release. A book detailing the lore and narrative, titled Logos: The World of Final Fantasy XVI, is set for release in late 2025 in Japan and 2026 in the West. A second artbook covering the DLC, The Art of Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Rising Tide, will release in 2026. A stage adaptation of the game by the Takarazuka Revue's Cosmos Troupe was also in production and set for 2024 but has been indefinitely postponed.