Final Fantasy 16 won’t be an open-world game

polygon.com:

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida is a busy man. He’s also the producer and director of the hit online entry in the series, Final Fantasy 14, a game he is widely credited with saving and which, following a recent explosion in popularity, is now the most profitable game in the series’ long history.

Small wonder that he should be given stewardship of a mainline title as well, and in a recent spate of interviews, Yoshida has shed a little more light on Final Fantasy 16 and the departures it will make from other recent Final Fantasy games.

Most significant is that it will not follow Final Fantasy 15 in using an open-world design. Yoshida told IGN that, while inspired by the open-world games that dominate big-budget single-player gaming at the moment, he wanted to use smaller sections of more varied locations to convey the game’s epic scope.

“Yes, in [Final Fantasy 16] you’ll find inspiration from recent triple-A open-world RPGs,” he said. “However, to bring a story that feels like it spans an entire globe and beyond, we decided to avoid an open-world design that limits us to a single open-world space, and instead focus on an independent area-based game design that can give players a better feel of a truly ‘global’ scale.”

He also explained that, while Final Fantasy 16 would feature the series’ traditional party of combatants, companions would be AI-controlled and the player would remain focused on the protagonist, Clive. “We didn’t want to overwhelm users in our newest trailer, so we focused solely on Clive’s battles,” Yoshida said. “That said, for most of his journey, Clive will be accompanied by one or more companions. These companions will participate in battle, as well as trade banter with Clive. That said, the