The May 24 PlayStation Showcase has been rolling out the trailers for game’s we’ll be mashing buttons to on our PS5s in the future, and Final Fantasy XVI is no exception. Though we’ve seen a good chunk of the game from recent previews, this latest trailer shows off some sharp visuals while teasing the potentially confusing but certainly grim plot.
Final Fantasy XVI is expected to arrive on June 22, 2023 exclusively on PS5. Following many awkward steps in the franchise’s history, the latest entry has tasked Final Fantasy XIV’s savior, game producer Naoki Yoshida, with leading the charge for its next leap forward. With players taking on the role of sole protagonist Clive, a lack of party members isn’t the only differentiating factor.
As we saw a little from today’s trailer, Final Fantasy XVI is a notably darker game, for better or for worse, taking inspiration from the likes of Game of Thrones. Check it out here:
Read More: Final Fantasy XVI Sounds Fun, But Series Vets Might Have It Rough
Final Fantasy XVI is clearly interested in telling a dark story of personal struggle set in an unforgiving world. While the bite-sized portions of dialogue on display in the latest trailer don’t offer a tremendous amount of information on a plot that’s already warranted its own system to help demystify it, there’s clearly a tale of struggle, with a world plunged into strife and struggle.
The “Mothercrystals,” described in several previews as the central point of struggle between warring armies and in the recent trailer, might actually be more of a problem for FFXVI’s denizens than a gift. It’s clear that the central struggle of warring armies, which previews have indicated take up an enormous part of the opening, will reveal a more mythic and potentially depressing reality underneath.
The PlayStation Showcase trailer also showed off one of the game’s undeniable strengths: Visual fidelity. Aiming for a high level of cinematic flair, it looks sharp in both cutscenes and in the brief bit of gameplay we saw as Clive gets set to do battle against a lizard monster and other foes; combat has been compared to Devil May Cry in recent previews, which might sound like heresy, but at least it’ll be a fun kind of heresy. And that’s to say nothing of the spectacle of the game’s summons. Known as Eikons, FFXVI will feature gameplay segments focused entirely on epic, kaiju-style battles that’ll look great on a massive 4k screen.
The story might confuse or tire us, but damn Final Fantasy XVI looks pretty.