PlatinumGames and Kingdom Hearts 4’s studio each developed parts of Final Fantasy 16

PlatinumGames and the studio behind Kingdom Hearts 4 have both revealed that they took part in the development of Final Fantasy 16.

The news was revealed during the Final Fantasy 16 Pre-Launch Celebration live stream held during Summer Game Fest.

In a video message, PlatinumGames president and CEO Atsushi Inaba said: “PlatinumGames was graced with the opportunity to develop a part of Final Fantasy 16.

“We’d never had an experience to work on a title in this manner, so it certainly took us by surprise when we were first approached.

“But the development staff, myself included, were all extremely excited for this opportunity, saying things like ‘it’s the Final Fantasy’ and ‘we’ll never get another chance to work on Final Fantasy’. So we gladly accepted this opportunity and made it happen.

“Takahisa Taura, who worked with Square Enix previously on Nier: Automata, led the development staff and the team on the PlatinumGames side. He powered through the development as leader of the team, and I’m confident that the part we handled ended up being high quality content.”

Following Inaba’s statement, a second video message was shown, this time by Kingdom Hearts 4 co-director Tai Yasue.

“I’m happy to announced that, in fact, the Kingdom Hearts development team had a part in developing Final Fantasy 16,” he confirmed.

“We joined forces on the battles and such, but to be honest it came as a surprise when the idea was initially brought to us.

“It’s already hard to achieve a scale of this level while being an action-based game. And it felt even crazier hearing their plan to join forces with development teams that each have different creative methods.

“I mean, even if it’s coming from Naoki Yoshida, the man with an asteroid named after him, we were thinking about politely declining.

“That being said, as we got to know more about the game’s plan and story, the entire team wanted to make this work, no matter what. Although it was a wild undertaking, there was ultimately something to gain through its development.

Further reading

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A Final Fantasy 16 demo is available to download now

PS5 owners can play the first two hours of the game

“Now Final Fantasy 16’s release is right around the corner. In a sense, it’s been developed in an unconventional way, but in part because of that we feel it’s shaped up to deliver an exceptional experience, so please give it a go.”

During the presentation, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida stated that he couldn’t yet reveal which parts of the game were worked on by each development team, but promised that once the game is out this information will be shared.

A Final Fantasy 16 demo is planned for release on June 12.