Final Fantasy XVI Is A Lot Like God Of War, And Its Director Knows It

gamespot.com:

Final Fantasy XVI is barely recognizable as a Final Fantasy game. After years of merely flirting with a more action-oriented approach, this one fully embraces a new role as a big-budget action game spectacle. The high-fantasy setting of warring kingdoms is accentuated by larger-than-life superpowered beings: Dominants, human hosts for otherworldly summoned creatures. This new take on Final Fantasy is kinetic and hard-hitting, and very little like anything we've seen in the series before.

In fact, in practice it often feels less like a Final Fantasy game, and more like a God of War. The hard-hitting melee action combat is punctuated by huge action set-pieces thanks to the larger-than-life clashes between hulking Eikons. These creatures, recognizable to Final Fantasy fans as classic summons like Ifrit, Ramuh, and Garuda, are essentially weapons of mass destruction kept by the disparate kingdoms as their individual shows of power. In practice, their presence means huge-scale Eikon battles that are individually tailored to be unique experiences.

You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos.

Now Playing: Final Fantasy 16 Preview

The similarity to God of War and its over-the-top action isn't a coincidence, as the game director of FFXVI is a long-time fan of the series from its very first game in 2005. He acknowledges it was an influence on his work, and the mission structure of Final Fantasy XVI follows very closely to the more recent God of War games, thanks to a hub that leads to your main quest objectives and sidequests.

We spoke with three leads behind the upcoming game: producer Naoki Yoshida, director Hiroshi Takai, and combat director Ryota Suzuki. (Answers were provided via translation by localization director