Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that he has no plans to release DLC.
In an interview with Game informantYoshida stated that this game is a one-shot, though there is always the potential for more if players fall in love with the world of Valisteia.
The lack of DLC proves the commitment of the development team to present a complete story in this game, despite the criticism of the previous series.
“It’s a one-time game,” Yoshida said. “We’re asking players to pay full price for this experience, so we want an experience that’s worth the amount of money players are going to pay, and we want them to enjoy it as much as they paid or more.”
He continued: “We have no idea if people are going to fall in love with Valistea, or fall in love with Clive’s story, or want to see more of the world and its characters.
“So while we always want to look at DLC or spin-offs or those types of things where you can learn more about the game, first we want to see if Valistea and Clive are really the things that players around the world want to see more of, and then make this decision.”
The lack of a DLC plan is in stark contrast to the precedent set by Square Enix’s recent games. Final Fantasy 7 Remake received Intergrade DLC, Final Fantasy 13 was turned into a trilogy, and Final Fantasy 15’s story was widely criticized for being incomplete and later supplemented with DLC packs.
Elsewhere in a subsequent interview with Game informantYoshida discussed the game’s PlayStation 5 exclusivity, with the team simply preferring Sony’s offer after it “looked at all the options”.
“Final Fantasy, which is one of Square Enix’s very important franchises, along with Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts — when we start development, we approach multiple platforms, multiple companies to release the game. And when you approach them, they’re going to come back to us with their suggestions,” Yoshida said.
“However, from a developer’s and programmer’s point of view, limiting development to one system not only makes our work easier, but also allows us to optimize it.
“And it gives us the ability to maximize the performance of a single system because we’re only focusing on one system.”
To learn more about Final Fantasy 16, you can read How It Impressed Me questioning the point of the series. I also interviewed the voice actors of Clive and Jill Ben Starr and Suzanne Fielding.