With the discharge of Rising Tide, the world of Closing Fantasy 16 is now full. A sport about elemental gods that previously have been referred to as Espers, Summons, Eidolons and extra, one aspect was mysteriously lacking from FF16’s narrative. Now, with Rising Tide, the Eikon of Water joins Clive’s struggle.
“You’ll be able to actually really feel that they’ve all powered up,” enthuses Takeo Kujiraoka, the director of Closing Fantasy 16’s DLC. Energy creep is frequent in video games, after all – satisfying development virtually calls for that characters develop into ever extra highly effective, till you’re swatting away beforehand lethal enemies. However Kujiraoka isn’t speaking about Clive and Jill, FF16’s good-looking leads – he’s speaking in regards to the improvement staff.
Kujiraoka has stepped into the director’s chair for the post-launch interval of Closing Fantasy 16, taking on these duties from Hiroshi Takai. Positioned accountable for discovering new adventures for Clive and new challenges for gamers, one asset was probably the most invaluable of all: the staff was pumped up and able to ship.
“Everybody gained numerous expertise, as people, via creating the primary sport,” Kujiraoka says. “The tempo of improvement for the DLC was quite a bit quicker, quite a bit smoother.”
Whereas different groups inside Sq. Enix have been engaged on PS5 for a while, for FF16’s builders – the thrillingly-named ‘Artistic Enterprise Unit 3’ – this was a first-time outing on the platform. Kujiraoka describes a strategy of trial-and-error, experimentation, and struggles to become familiar with the platform that inevitably prolonged FF16’s improvement. For the DLC, nevertheless, the staff was prepared. Like an RPG hero prepared for the end-game they had been, as he says, ‘powered up’.
“Once we requested the staff to ‘simply make one thing new’, it meant that in a number of totally different elements of the sport, whether or not that was sport design, setting, something like that, we had been ranging from this powered-up place,” he provides. “I believe you’ll be able to most likely inform from the surface as effectively – that is why we had been capable of create two units of DLC on such a brief timeline, one in six months, the opposite in a yr.”
With builders powered-up, so too are gamers. Closing Fantasy 16 all the time needed to tread an unenviable tightrope, in any case. As a Closing Fantasy sport, it wanted to be accessible and pleasing to gamers who may solely be used to slower-paced, command-based RPGs. However FF16 can also be an unashamed action-RPG, its heaviest influences most likely some mixture of Satan Might Cry and God of Battle. However in creating DLCs aimed toward gamers already within the end-game, the FF16 staff had been considerably free of these constraints, designing for gamers who could have spent tens of hours attending to grips with Clive, his ability set, and the tempo of FF16’s fight.
“For Echoes of the Fallen, we did up the baseline issue of the fight as a complete,” Kujiraoka explains. “One of many causes for that was that we had deliberately saved the problem stage of the primary sport at a barely decrease level, as a result of we needed to guarantee that these gamers who weren’t so assured with motion gameplay, might benefit from the story and see it proper via the tip.
“Wanting on the proportion of gamers who managed to finish the primary sport and attain the tip, I do suppose that was the best selection for the bottom sport. However on the similar time, we had been conscious of suggestions on the market of gamers saying ‘I needed some more difficult battles, I would like one thing to essentially sink my tooth into’, or ‘I needed an actual back-to-back string of consecutive battles as an actual problem’, and even ‘I simply needed extra time controlling Clive and taking part in as him’.”
The result’s the pair of FF16 DLCs that now spherical out the sport’s expertise. Echoes of the Fallen, launched again in December, and Rising Tide, newly launched this week. As a result of improvement on the DLCs didn’t begin in earnest till after FF16’s June 2023 launch date, the staff was capable of scour for suggestions – studying fan impressions, watching stay streams, and thoroughly dissecting participant response to FF16 with a purpose to work out precisely how far gamers and the fight may very well be pushed with the DLCs.
“That is the opposite huge benefit past the expertise we gained engaged on the primary sport,” Kujiraoka keenly factors out. “Engaged on the DLC after the primary sport has already been launched, you will get this suggestions from gamers and he can take that under consideration as you are creating. So I’m actually, actually grateful for all of the gamers and their suggestions.”
Followers diving into Rising Tide this week will discover an expertise that goals to supply a little bit bit extra of nearly the whole lot from FF16. Requested if the DLC is extra about providing a sizzling new twist on FF16, as some DLCs do, Kujiraoka shakes his head: it’s about refinement, and pushing what’s already there additional.
Outdoors of the story, this manifests as ‘Kairos Gate’, a brand new mode designed to check participant mettle in a spread of more and more troublesome fight situations. That is the final word expression of FF16’s fight design, one thing which is undoubtedly one in all its greatest options. Like Kujiraoka suggests, the mode is designed to push the programs designed for the core sport to their limits.
The story aspect isn’t any slouch both, after all. You’ll discover more durable enemies within the DLC, bombastic new strikes, fascinating new story twists, extra time for sure key characters to take pleasure in a little bit improvement, and exquisite new zones to discover. It maybe isn’t fairly an ‘growth’ within the conventional sense of the phrase as some sport updates are – nevertheless it’s undoubtedly on the higher bounds of what ‘DLCs’ have a tendency to supply.
The results of this method does provide one curious wrinkle: that is content material that will get slotted into the story, however when pressed for the way he’d outright advocate folks play the content material, he recommends gamers end the primary story first, then return to take pleasure in Rising Tide within the post-game. The DLC additionally doesn’t change FF16’s ending in any approach – however its occasions do present narrative context for followers to feast on. In the end, it is much less denouement and extra of a aspect distraction – however in RPGs, generally that stuff is one of the best half. Given the unique sport felt to wrestle with content material exterior of the primary story, it feels acceptable that what may be FF16’s final content material drop seeks to deal with it. And on PC, gamers could have entry to this from day one – every time that day finally ends up being.
“The general idea we labored with for the Rising Tide was kind of the identical method that you simply may take for an growth pack of an MMO,” Kujiraoka notes. “That’s to say that we took the entire basic components making up Closing Fantasy 16 and added a bit extra to them. In order that’s extra story, that is a complete new subject space that incorporates a city with aspect quests, that is new Eikonic skills for Clive, and that is a brand new Eikon battle. We put the whole lot into this growth.”
“Somewhat than kind of including one thing that is a little bit little bit of a twist or a bit totally different, I might say that what we have actually centered on for this DLC was offering extra and higher content material that FF16 followers are actually going to take pleasure in.”
