PC players won’t have to look wistfully from the sidelines anymore as Final Fantasy XVI, at long last, is spreading its wings onto other systems. It’s sooner than you might think too, with the game launching on Steam and the Epic Games Store in September. Even better, there’s a free demo available right now, letting you get a meaty taste of 2023’s best action game. Final Fantasy XVI finally coming to PC is a good sign for the series, which has undoubtedly been hurt by exclusivity, and according to the game’s director, it might be a good sign of things to come.
If you aren’t familiar with Final Fantasy don’t worry, you don’t need to play sixteen other games before this one. Every mainline Final Fantasy game is completely disconnected from the others, outside of similar themes, monsters, spells, etc.
The PC version of the game will launch on September 17 and set you back $49.99, but a “Complete Edition” will also be available on the same day for $69.99, and includes the Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide expansions. Even better, the PC requirements are relatively reasonable, so you might not actually set your graphics card on fire by playing the dazzling boss battles.
If you’re into dark fantasy stories, crunchy combo-heavy combat, or absurly over-the-top anime boss fights, that’s a pretty good price for everything on offer in Final Fantasy XVI. The entry was a massive shift for the franchise as the series’ first full-on action game, and Square Enix brought on Devil May Cry 5 combat director, Ryota Suzuki, to achieve that. It’s a bold game that certainly has some pacing and variety problems but forges its own identity that dramatically stands out, while still retaining the core of what makes Final Fantasy unique.
Of course, Final Fantasy XVI launched as a PS5 exclusive in June 2023, with some hefty backing and marketing from Sony. A year and a couple of months is almost exactly the same amount of time it took Final Fantasy 7 Remake to come to PC. Presumably, that could mean that we’re looking at a similar timeline for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which would mean a PC version in early Summer 2025.
But FFXVI’s director, Hiroshi Takai, thinks those timelines could drastically change in the future, telling GamesRadar it’s “possible” and “probably even likely” that future entries in the franchise will launch day one on PC. "That said, the team in charge of each project gets to decide its own policy, so this is just my personal opinion,” says Takai.
Still, this sentiment does line up with what Square Enix as a whole has emphasized lately. During a financial briefing back in May, the company announced it would “aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy that includes Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.”
We’ve seen this push more and more lately with Square’s smaller games — Visions of Mana, Saga: Emerald Beyond, and Life is Strange: Double Exposure are all launching on multiple platforms this year. The Final Fantasy series has been the one outlier in all that, but it’s unlikely that platform exclusivity will remain, which is a good thing.
Final Fantasy has taken a lot of chances in recent years in terms of pushing into new genres, reimagining classics, and interrogating the soul of the series. But for the franchise to really thrive, it needs to be as accessible for as many players as possible, and any step in that direction is only a good thing.
