Damn,Final Fantasy XVIReally Does Want to Be Its OwnGame of Thrones

Before the release of theFinal Fantasy XIVexpansion , Shadowbringers , biz theater director Naoki Yoshida jest that George R.R. Martin postulate to end up his A Song of Ice and Fire books before he ’d considera Game of Thrones collaborationwith the MMORPG . Four geezerhood later and with Winds of Winternowhere in sight , it would seem Yoshida has simply decided to do things himself .

It is perhaps passé to immediately label any sort of gloomy mediaeval fancy aesthetic as being like Game of Thrones , perhaps in the same way gaming audiences are just as fast to label that aesthetic as akin to Dark Souls . ButFinal Fantasy XVI , the late in thevenerable Japanese roleplaying game saga , seems to embrace that comparability wholeheartedly , and with a certain level of aim that set itself aside from the anterior , well , fantasies of the franchise .

Final Fantasy has of class done classic fantasy stylings in the past — from its initial going leaning toward Graeco-Roman western archetypes of warriors and mages battle goblin and dragons , up to Yoshida ’s other Final Fantasy project , the said MMO , XIV . The aesthetic is still the most spectacular even as the franchise has almost as at length juked and jive between the steampunk of VI , thesci - fi techno fantasy of VII , VIII , andXIII , and everything in between . Final Fantasy is of track no stranger to benighted storytelling either , thrusting its heroes into fearful conflicts against awful villains , and impel some of those hoagy and their allies into paying the ultimate price in their journey . So what makes XVI ’s return to both of those wells feel both unambiguously unlike and yet also clear in the pace of Game of Thrones ’ influence ?

Image: Square Enix/Playstation

The prologue demo for the secret plan free this calendar week paint a picture of a Final Fantasy that is fascinated not just with the surface level aesthetic of Thrones ’ exceptional idea of Eurocentric illusion , but with the form of political and familial intrigues that made Game of Thrones the overhead hit it was with mainstream audiences . XVI begin with the perspective of Clive Rosfield , the old princeling of the rule family unit of a low principality called Rosaria . In a world where powerful nation - states have come up up around giant , wizard crystal and their God , the Eikons , Rosaria is a region that hero-worship the classic Final Fantasy summon Phoenix , the deity of lifetime and flack incarnate . A “ First Shield , ” fundamentally a escort , for his younger brother Joshua — the embodiment of the Phoenix — Clive find his animation upend when political machinations and betrayals violently usurp his father ’s rule , leading to a night of slaughter before impending war that sees both his brother and father slain , his home usurped by his punic mother , and Clive put into military servitude at the hired hand of a formerly allied nation .

All this human drama add XVI ’s world down to the ground level in ways prior entries have by match it with grim point of gore and casually cheating speech communication that experience like they ’re distinctly aping Game of Thrones ’ own initial approach — when the series was proclaim as somehow being fantasy for people who do n’t like fancy , even with ice zombi spirit and dragons from the get - go . It feels like a clear-cut differentiation from Final Fantasy ’s retiring title — themselves no stranger to mature storytelling or sullen report , of course — in so much that the dour moments of those games were often either implied or show in a more abstract manner , whether by proficient limitation or stylistic choice .

Meanwhile here in the present , the fucks wing aplenty in XVI ’s dialog — no demand for a fantastical relief — and as often as the blood does , and this sort of home primal darkness is shored up by the slow and unfaltering worldbuilding the game acquaint to you in the political joining across its fibre and part . Is Final Fantasy XVI setting itself up to be a nuanced , mature level of politics , nations in difference of opinion , and familial drama ? Yes . Is it also a biz where a nipper who ’s around 10 class quondam watches his father ’s head word get suddenly slice up off , becomes drenched in his father ’s pass ’s rakehell , and then just kind of stare at that break up head ? Also yes . It ’s a piffling much at time , especially when said minor them traumatically explode into a jumbo firebird avatar and starts at random incinerating everything around him .

Image: Square Enix/Playstation

Image: Square Enix/Playstation

But that clash between the high fantasy of Final Fantasy and this far more grim esthetic context is craft something with a good deal of voltage , even in the humble coup d’oeil we ’ve had of XVI so far . In go for this Thrones - esque vibe Final Fantasy XVI is n’t embarrassed of its classic fantasy elements , if anything it feels all the more emboldened : a Chocobo isstill a chocobo , those classically faceted crystals are still a source for the series ’ traditional primary magics . The summon creature that have been a staple of the franchise for generations remain as they always have been — the very commencement of the demonstration , for representative , flashes forward to a belated period of Clive ’s life where he witnesses a massive battle between two war nations give fashion to a ginormous kaiju - esque fight between Final Fantasy legends Shiva and Titan , and it ’s as heightened and silly as such a affair should be .

So far Final Fantasy XVI might feel , for all the cursing and bloodlust of its prologues , like it wants to chase the ethnical stash of what Game of Thrones did for contemporary fantasy — but it does n’t forget that it ’s still also a Final Fantasy game , with an emphasis on the fantasy . We ’ll see how it nail that balance when Clive ’s journeying continues in the full game ’s loss on June 22 , but for now , it ’s shaping up to have a lot of interesting hope .

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