Final Fantasy 16 Producer Naoki Yoshida emphasizes on RPG site that the main goal of a future action-RPG is to create a complete story without splitting it into several parts in different environments, as happened with Final Fantasy 15.
“We’re focusing on the story even more than the action,” Yoshida (or Yoshi-P) defines the main focus this time around, before going on to reflect on the main issues FF15 faced during and even after release. And you look back at the previous games, at FF15 – they had their story, but it wasn’t complete. And then they try to wrap it up, and then they promise some more story, but then they don’t give us a story…” he concludes, proving how acutely aware he is of how disappointing Final Fantasy 15 is.
Fans will probably need some reassurance, especially after seeing how unfinished Final Fantasy 15 was at launch. The game required an entire Royal Edition and a ton of story-related updates to fix the messy narrative, not to mention bring all of its ending and future content into a single text. Novel.
Fortunately, Final Fantasy 16 looks to be even more complete than other big modern releases, as it won’t even include a day one patch (due Game informant), and all we’ll get on the disc is the entire game.
However, the developers stress that the lack of a day one patch doesn’t mean they aren’t constantly looking for bugs, or that they won’t fix any issues that arise after launch. They just want to recreate the classic Final Fantasy experience where you can enjoy the game right out of the box without any strings attached or hidden requirements.
Speaking with 4 Homer, the developers believe that the story is properly (and beautifully) wrapped up here. This was only possible after first creating a solid background world spanning 4,000 years and a story that adds substance to each nation, culture and geography. They also tease that there is enough groundwork to make FFXVI-2, but they feel it would be better if someone else did it, as they put their heart and soul into it,
An excerpt from an interview with Easy Allies (reportedly by Gamingbolt) adds that the focus is not only on a complete story from start to finish, but also on having a story that resonates with all types of players, both old and new fans, and spreading the full story is just one step towards this ideal goal.