Square Enix is planning to announce Final Fantasy XVI during the upcoming PS5 showcase according to some reports. The event is set for this Wednesday.
Final Fantasy XVI was first rumored to make an appearance back in June when Sony held an event called The Future of Gaming. This showcase had a bunch of PS5 game announcements that included Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Square Enix also had an announcement with Project Athia, the next open-world RPG from the developers behind Final Fantasy XV.
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For some reason, Final Fantasy XVI, which was reportedly set for a reveal during the June showcase event, didn’t make the cut. It was heavily rumored for a while so its absence felt abrupt but due to the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, it made sense to delay announcements until things were much clear.
Sony has just announced a brand new showcase for the PS5 that will be roughly 40 minutes long. This will give an update on the currently announced games as well as reveal some of the upcoming projects for the PS5, one of which is rumored to be Final Fantasy XVI. To further add some support for the rumor, it was recently discovered that a Twitter account has been made for Final Fantasy XVI that is registered by an official Square Enix domain.
Shinji Hashimoto, who is a key figure for the series at Square Enix has recently retweeted the announcement of the PS5 showcase. He has a tendency to retweet such news if there is an announcement related to the projects that he handles at Square Enix. He is also associated with the Kingdom Hearts series, however, it is highly unlikely that a new game will be announced during the event. The only likely explanation is a Final Fantasy game announcement and it is heavily rumored to be Final Fantasy XVI.
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GameInformer’s ex-editor Imran Khan also agrees that this event might be a good time to finally announce it. There have been a lot of inside rumors about the reveal for Final Fantasy XVI. It is reportedly being developed by the same team which is behind the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy XIV. They had released a piece of artwork on their website that seemed to hint at their next project. It tied with a recruitment drive for various positions at their studio.
“This project has already completed the initial development, the development environment has been prepared, and we are now in the full-scale large-scale development phase,’ said the official post commenting on their next-generation project. “We are looking for developers who will give the world ‘fun’, ‘fun’ and ‘surprise’.”
