It looks like Final Fantasy 16 will be missing something at launch – but you won't be sad about it

Final Fantasy 16 looks pretty good, ey? Our own Alex Donaldson had some massive glowing praise for the game in his preview that went live yesterday, and (in an earlier preview) I also didn’t have a bad word to say about it. By all accounts, this is going to be a stunner. A proper PlayStation 5 tour de force. And the developers seem equally as confident in the game, too.

As well as the brilliant comments we’ve seen from the devs as the media tour has been going on (giving us such gems as ‘Final Fantasy 16 is going to have Geordies in it’), there’s been something specific in a big Game Informer cover piece that’s been picked up and run about a bit over the past few days: Final Fantasy 16 is not going to have a Day One patch.

Now, you might be thinking that’s a bit strange – off the top of my head, I cannot think of any massive, triple-A game of this stature that launched in the past few years without a Day One patch. Even Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had one, so Nintendo isn’t immune from the new-fangled habit.

Director Hiroshi Takai noted in an interview with Game Informer that there are currently no plans to update the more-action-than-RPG at launch. Takai noted that the game has been in the works for so long (and has had so many delays) that it’s in such a confident spot, it does not need a Day One patch. Fancy that.

This doesn’t mean the game won’t get updates. There may be elements of the title that don’t gel with the public at large when the game launches, for example, and the developers may want to tune that. The team may want to address certain difficulty options, or re-balance some ludicrous end-game boss when your least favourite YouTuber discovers some disgusting cheese to kill it in one hit.

Whatever happens, though, it sounds like Square Enix is pretty confident that you’re not going to have to download some egregious 9GB patch before you can start playing on Day One, because this Final Fantasy – much unlike Final Fantasy 15, for example – sounds like it’s going to be finished at launch.

Final Fantasy 16 will release on June 22, 2023 for PlayStation 5. There is no word on whether the game will come to PC or other consoles in the future (but it won't arrive elsewhere within at least six months).