Final Fantasy 16 won’t be open world – only one playable character

metro.co.uk:

Interviews with Final Fantasy 16’s producer have explained the lack of an open world and why it’s ditched turn-based battles.

Although it made its grand return at Sony’s last State of Play, after a two-year absence, Final Fantasy 16’s newest trailer left us with more questions than answers.

Producer Naoki Yoshida has begun sharing more concrete details in interviews and perhaps the most eye-grabbing is that Final Fantasy 16 won’t be an open world experience.

Instead, the game will be split into separate areas. Yoshida explains that this is partly so the story isn’t limited to a single open world space and can span across the entire world of Final Fantasy 16.

This is in stark contrast to the previous game, Final Fantasy 15, which did offer a traditional open world to explore, although it did become more linear as you progressed.

That said, Yoshida admits that the game will take some inspiration from other open world games. He didn’t specify how, nor did he give an idea of how many areas will be in the game and how big they’ll be.

‘To create a game that might excite and resonate not only with our core fans, but also with that new generation [of fans], we played a lot of games ourselves, and so yes, in [Final Fantasy 16] you’ll find inspiration from recent triple-A open world role-playing games,’ he told IGN.

‘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.’

Attracting new fans that might otherwise not be interested in Final Fantasy appears to be a major priority for Square Enix.

This seems to be