With the launch of Final Fantasy 16 just around the corner, the developers revealed one of the biggest obstacles they had to overcome when tuning the game's performance mode feature. The developers also shared a glimpse at what they did to make performance mode work in Final Fantasy 16 while touching upon a few other topics in a new interview.
As the next entry in Square Enix's award-winning series, Final Fantasy 16 has quite the task ahead of it. Between the political machinations of the nations of Valisthea, the spread of the Blight, and the personal struggles that the Dominants face, the game is not a light tale. Taking inspiration from games such as Devil May Cry 5 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the gameplay of Final Fantasy 16 mixes swordplay, magic, and the titanic powers of the Eikons into quite a spectacle. While the game features a quality mode for those that want it, Final Fantasy 16 will also have a performance mode for those that prefer to play at 60 frames per second.
When designing Final Fantasy 16's performance mode, game producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida and art director Hiroshi Minagawa revealed in an interview with Square Enix's blog that the biggest obstacle towards fine-tuning the feature was the moogles that inhabit the world of Valisthea. As a long-running staple of the Final Fantasy series, the fuzzy, bat-winged moogles are among the most outlandish beings in the grim world of Final Fantasy 16 but serve as guides for players that want to hunt notorious monsters. According to the interview, Minagawa stated that the moogles appeared closer to hedgehogs when performance mode was close to its final iteration, and stated that their high polygon count made it a challenge to deal with.
By comparison, Minagawa and Yoshida stated that the tentacled foe known as the morbol was a challenge that the developers were eager to take on from the start. However, Minagawa stated that they added some specific processing for the moogles as a way to handle their appearances. The inclusion of the moogles was also not part of the original plans for Final Fantasy 16, but both Yoshida and Minagawa stated that their inclusion was at the insistence of an assistant producer that wanted them to be included.
Suffice it to say, the producer in question got their wish granted. As for when players will get their wish for a Final Fantasy 16 demo granted, only time will tell if the June 11 launch event in Los Angeles will be the date for the demo to drop.
Final Fantasy 16 launches on June 22 for PS5.
Source: Square Enix