Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XVI, the next mainline installment in the flagship JRPG series, has gone gold. Although a delay was already looking pretty unlikely, this indicates we're not likely to see any further changes to the upcoming June 22nd release date.
Earlier today, a tweet appeared on the official Final Fantasy XVI Twitter account confirming that the game has gone gold. The tweet was accompanied by a picture of the game's directors, Hiroshi Takai and Kazutoyo Maehiro, as well as an adorable plushie of everyone's favorite good boy Torgal. The text of the tweet simply affirms the game's gold status and implores fans to look forward to Final Fantasy XVI's release date.
If you're not sure what it means when a game goes gold, in essence, it's a reference to a game finishing its development stage and being ready to move on to the production stage. "Going gold" means there's no more initial development or production work left to do; instead, it's all about manufacturing and getting the game on shelves. There may still be extra finishing touches to be implemented, but for the most part, development is complete.
As early as June last year, Final Fantasy XVI was "playable from start to finish", in the words of Takai, but that doesn't mean it was finished. A game can, after all, still be playable without having all of its intended features implemented. Final Fantasy XVI reaching gold status means that we're one step closer to getting to play it, which is tantalizing.
Final Fantasy XVI is due to arrive on PlayStation 5 on June 22nd. At the moment, it appears that the PS5 is the only platform on which the game will appear, although rumors have swirled for many months that a PC port will be announced. We'll have to wait and see whether that's the case. In the meantime, stay tuned to TechRaptor for more Final Fantasy XVI news.
