As Final Fantasy 16 players struggle with graphics stuttering on PS5, Square Enix and Sony say they’re working on the issue

I don’t mean to scare you, but some Final Fantasy 16 players on PS5 recently found that they were having a great time playing, but were invaded by large black spots or boxes, which almost ruined poor Clive’s day. No, this is not DLC, it seems to be part of some graphical issues that appeared after a recent firmware update for the console, and Sony and Square Enix said they are investigating the matter.

Browse Reddit or Twitter and you’ll find plenty of posts where players are showing off or talking about issues they’re having. My personal favorite is a video I’ve embedded below of someone having to flee from a void that seemingly decides to chase them for a while and temporarily swallows Mr. Rosfeld whole.

“Yesterday’s PS5 system update caused serious graphical errors in some cutscenes and some gameplay of Final Fantasy 6,” one player tweeted about the problem. “The error gradually progressed to the screen turning black, and the error would temporarily disappear after opening the event time legend menu.”

Others have reported their consoles hard shutting down in the middle of gameplay after deploying the latest PS5 firmware update, with one Reddit user writing: “I had the same thing yesterday, complete hard shutdown after a cutscene, even had to rebuild the database and repair the external hard drive, like there was a power outage. I won’t be playing it again until the game is patched.”

Thankfully, Sony and Square Enix have already begun investigating the matter, with the official Final Fantasy account tweeting: “Following the release of a PlayStation 5 system update, there have been reports of game crashes and graphical issues. We are currently working with SIE to investigate and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please wait for further updates from us.”

So, there you have it. Hopefully, Clive and his companions don’t get swallowed by the Void too many times before a fix arrives. Maybe this is a warning that once the game hits PC today, Square Enix will send the same Void to anyone who immediately starts making particularly weird mods for the game.