Final Fantasy 16 Will Be A PS5 Exclusive For Six Months, According To Sony

A rather important detail about Square Enix's upcoming JRPG sequel, "Final Fantasy 16," was surprisingly and unceremoniously announced via a promotional video for the PlayStation 5 console's DualSense controllers, of all things (via Twitter). The 30-second video showcases a number of upcoming and currently-available PlayStation 5 titles, emphasizing the controllers' various features like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. But tucked halfway into the clip — at around the 16-second mark — is a brief look at "Final Fantasy XVI" with a brief note. It turns out the game's timed exclusivity will be limited to the first six months of its release.

Being a timed exclusive isn't necessarily a surprise, as previous "Final Fantasy" titles have also been PlayStation exclusives upon their release, but this confirms that Square Enix is sticking to what seems to be an intentional release pattern with the future sequel. Whether this is good news or bad news depends a lot on your level of patience.

In a general sense, the six-month PS5 exclusivity probably won't affect the new game with the conflicting name. It's still slated for a vague "summer of 2023" release date, and we already knew it was bound for Sony's still-elusive console. And again, being a PlayStation exclusive has become something of a common approach for recent "Final Fantasy" releases. Even the six-month window isn't new.

What this does mean is that, if you were hoping to be able to play "Final Fantasy 16" on anything other than a PS5 shortly after its initial launch, you're going to have to wait. Exactly how long of a wait it'll be is unclear, but at the absolute earliest you're probably looking at winter 2023, if not sometime in 2024. This also means that, if you were hoping to lord being able to play "Final Fantasy 16" over your PS5-less friends, you won't get to boast for too terribly long.