Final Fantasy 16’s new trailer deep dives its eikons and kingdoms
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A new Final Fantasy 16 trailer has just been released and it is packed with new knowledge about the game world of Valistea, its kingdoms and the powerful eikons at the epicenter.
Final Fantasy 16 is still slated for ‘Summer 2023’ (probably between June and September), but the PS5 exclusive looks set to grow into something very special. The latest trailer gives us updates on the game’s multitude of warring kingdoms.
We see a lot of new characters, as well as more scenes with the ones we got to know in previous trailers. A particular focus is on the Dominants, humans who can transform into gigantic, devastating eikons. These eikons will be familiar to longtime Final Fantasy fans as they take the form of subpoenas like Ifrit, Phoenix, Odin, Garuda, and Bahamut just to name a few.
The trailer also reminds us how much of a departure Final Fantasy 16 is from most of the series’ past two decades. Developer Creative Business Unit 3 (which also heads Final Fantasy 14 and its expansions) looks to be building a medieval world closer to the series’ earliest games, rather than the heavy science-fiction leanings of more contemporary entries.
An eikonic entry?
We may still be in the dark as to exactly when we’ll get our hands on Final Fantasy 16, but this latest trailer makes it seem like it will be well worth the wait.
As an avid Final Fantasy 14 enthusiast, I see it as a sign of quality that so many of its key contributors are working on FF16, including composer Masayoshi Soken, art director Hiroshi Minagawa, and localization leader Michael-Christopher Koji Fox. Oh, and it’s great to see Devil May Cry 5’s combat director Ryota Suzuki also lend his decades of talent to the game.
And speaking of combat, while I’ve enjoyed every Final Fantasy 16 trailer thus far, I really hope we get something of a deep dive into the gameplay soon. We’ve now seen a pretty healthy amount of Valistea, at least on the surface. In comparison, we’ve only seen short snippets of combat. A trailer showing what protagonist Clive (and possible party members who could join him) is really made of would be great to see.