With the release of Rising Tide, final fantasy 16 It’s done now. This is a game about elemental gods, known in the past as Espers, Summons, Eidolons, etc., but there’s one element mysteriously missing from FF16’s narrative. Now, in the rising tide, the Icon of Water joins Clive in the fight.
“You can really feel that they’re all powered up,” enthused Final Fantasy XVI DLC director Takeo Kujiraoka. Of course, power creep is common in games—satisfactory progression actually requires characters to become more powerful until you eliminate previously deadly foes. But Whaleoka isn’t talking about FF16’s handsome protagonists, Clive and Gil, but the development team.
Whaleoka took over the director duties from Hiroshi Takai after the release of Final Fantasy XVI. Tasked with finding new adventures for Clive and new challenges for players, one asset is the most valuable: the team is energized and ready to deliver.
“As individuals, everyone gained a lot of experience working on the main game,” Kujiraoka said. “DLC development is faster and smoother.”
While other teams within Square Enix have been working on PS5 for some time, for the developers of FF16 (the exciting “Creative Business Unit 3”), this is the first time it’s debuted on the platform. Kujiraoka describes a process of trial and error, experimentation, and efforts to master the platform that inevitably expanded the development of FF16. However, for DLC, the team is already ready. Like RPG heroes, they are ready and “full of power” for the end game, as he puts it.
“When we ask the team to ‘create something new,’ that means in many different aspects of the game, whether it’s game design, environments or things like that, we start from this strengthened position,” he added. “I think you can also see from the outside – that’s why we were able to create two sets of DLC in such a short period of time, one within six months and the other within a year.”
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As developers become more powerful, players become more powerful. After all, Final Fantasy XVI always has an enviable tightrope to walk. As a Final Fantasy game, it needs to be easy to pick up and enjoy for players who may only be used to slow-paced, command-based RPGs. But “FF16” is also an out-and-out action role-playing game, and its most important influence may be the combination of “Devil May Cry” and “God of War”. But in creating DLC for players who are already into the final game, the FF16 team has somewhat escaped these constraints, designing for players who will have to spend dozens of hours mastering Clive, his skills, and the rhythms of FF16 combat.
“For Echoes of the Fallen, we increased the baseline difficulty of the entire battle,” Kujiraoka explains. “One of the reasons is that we deliberately kept the difficulty of the main game at a slightly lower level, as we wanted to ensure that players who are less confident in action games would be able to enjoy the story and see it to the end.
“Looking at the percentage of players who successfully completed the main game and reached the ending, I do think it was the right choice for the base game. But at the same time, we noticed feedback from players saying ‘I want some more challenging combat, I Want something that I can really sink my teeth into,” or “I want real back-to-back fights,” “This is a real challenge,” or even “I just want more time to control Clive and play as him. “.
The result is that this pair of FF16 DLC now completes the gaming experience. Echoes of the Fallen, released in December, and new this week, Rising Tide. Since development of the DLC didn’t officially begin until after FF16’s June 2023 release date, the team was able to gather feedback – reading fan impressions, watching live streams, and carefully dissecting player reactions to FF16 in order to figure out exactly how long-distance players and combat would work. Pushed through DLC.
“This is another big advantage on top of the experience we gain in the main game,” Kujiraoka astutely points out. “Developing DLC after the main game is released, you can get feedback from players, who can take that into account when you develop it. So I’m really grateful to all the players and their feedback.”
Fans diving into Rising Tide this week will find an experience designed to deliver more of everything FF16 has to offer. When asked if this DLC was more about providing hot new changes to FF16 like some DLCs have done, Kujiraoka shook his head: it’s about improving and further pushing what’s already there.
Outside of the story, this manifests itself in “Kairos Gate,” a new mode designed to test players’ mettle in a series of increasingly difficult combat scenarios. This is the ultimate expression of FF16’s combat design, and it’s undoubtedly one of its best features. As Kujiraoka explains, this mode is designed to push the core game’s systems to their limits.
Of course, the story is no slouch either. You’ll find tougher enemies in the DLC, exaggerated new moves, an interesting new storyline, some key characters getting a little more time to enjoy a bit of development, and beautiful new areas to explore. It might not be quite an “expansion” in the traditional sense like some game updates, but it’s definitely the upper limit of what “DLC” has to offer.
The result of this approach does bring about a strange problem: these contents are inserted into the story, but when asked how he directly recommended people to play these contents, he recommended that players complete the main story first and then go back to enjoy the game. After the high tide. The DLC also doesn’t change the ending of FF16 in any way – but its events do provide narrative context for fans to enjoy. Ultimately, it’s less of an ending and more of a distraction – but in RPGs, sometimes those things are the best parts. Considering the original game struggled with content outside of the main story, FF16’s final piece of content may be an attempt to address this issue. On PC, players will have access to this content from day one – no matter which day it ends.
“The general concept we designed for Rising Tide is somewhat similar to how MMO expansions are made,” Kujiraoka noted. “That is, we took all the basic elements of Final Fantasy XVI and added a lot more. It’s more story, it’s a whole new area, there’s a town with side quests, it’s It’s Clive’s new Eikon ability, and it’s a new Eikon battle that we put everything into.”
“I would say what we’re really focused on with this DLC is delivering more and better content that FF16 fans will actually enjoy, rather than adding something that’s a little bit twisted or a little different.”
