If you're eager to get your hands on Final Fantasy XVI before it releases, you'll be able to, as a demo is planned.
That being said, you'll have to wait a while, as the demo will come out shortly before the game launches, as mentioned by producer Naoki Yoshida during an interview on Famitsu.
Yoshida-san mentions that releasing the demo months before launch would cause the hype created by playing it to fade away. It'll likely focus on the early part of the story and come two weeks ahead of release. If that is the case, players will be able to go straight to the purchase menu and continue straight from where they left off.
Yoshida-san believes that veteran Final Fantasy fans will be satisfied with the experience of playing the beginning of the story, however, there are voices internally that argue that it may be better for the demo to focus on battles and lets the player use multiple summons to draw in those who have not played the series before. The decision will likely be made based on the reactions to the recent media tour.
Specifically, the combat director is concerned that there may be an insufficient variety of usable actions at the beginning of the game for the action of the demo to be appealing to an audience of novices. The concern is that players won't be able to experience the true essence of the game's action if they only get to play the early story.
While we'll have to wait and see what Square Enix decides on this front, the same interview reveals that Final Fantasy XVI should take roughly 35 hours of your time to complete the main story, while side content will push that number up to 70 or 80 hours. On top of that, there will be a New Game Plus that will allow you to carry over your stats into a new playthrough and a "Final Fantasy Mode" that will provide the ultimate difficulty. These are not counted in the gameplay total mentioned. That being said, we also learn that the main story alone includes 11 hours of cutscenes.
If you're unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XVI, it's the next mainline game of the ultra-popular fantasy series by Square Enix. Its development is spearheaded by many developers from the Final Fantasy XIV team, which isn't too surprising considering the success of the latest MMORPG of the series, which has recently passed 27 million registered accounts worldwide.
Among them, we have producer Naoki Yoshida, director Hiroshi Takai, writer and creative director Kazutoyo Maehiro, artist Hiroshi Minagawa, composer Masayoshi Soken, and many more.
It's said to be a darker take on the Final Fantasy concept, while its battle system is fully action-based. Yet, you can expect plenty of traditional concepts from the series including summons and Chocobos.
The scheduled release date is June 22, 2023, for PS5. A PC version is also likely coming at some point, albeit there is no official release date for it at the moment.
