The year has come for Final Fantasy, Square Enix's flagship franchise, to add another installment to its impressively long list of titles. Fans have been waiting for Final Fantasy 16 for a long time, and after a series of production hitches and delays, Square Enix has given an official release date for the highly anticipated action RPG. Selecting a release date can be difficult, and even industry giants like Square Enix are not exempt from the permutations that come with every new addition. Publishers need to find a window of peak interest for their product to bathe in the limelight of media attention, and with the release date of Diablo 4 so close to that of Final Fantasy 16, the eagerly awaited title might have chosen its window poorly.
Gaming release schedules are a tricky thing to navigate for even the most experienced publishers in the business. Seemingly random factors like matching a horror game's release with Halloween and anniversary dates are always in play, so the scope of release dates is ever-changing as publishers look for ways to boost their games' publicity. This effort can result in games being delayed, like how The Day Before's release date was pushed back recently. Square Enix appears confident in Final Fantasy 16's hype, however, taking no such measures with its release and placing it only two weeks after that of Diablo 4.
Final Fantasy 16's Protagonist and New Features Bring a Fresh Spin
Square Enix has a lot of reasons to be brazenly confident about itself. Final Fantasy 16 comes nearly seven years after the last edition and that alone should generate sufficient hype for the newest entry. With the prospect of the new protagonist, countries, and the Valisthea universe as a whole, gamers have enough material to keep them fixated on the Final Fantasy franchise. Final Fantasy 16 intends to explore the medieval world similar to Game of Thrones' Westeros, employing Gothic-styled architecture and old-fashioned knights.
Clive Rosfield promises to be a compelling and layered protagonist, with Square Enix giving players control over the character in his teens, twenties, and thirties. It's not often gamers get to witness a character's story from its early years, and players can expect to experience several key events in Valisthea through the lens of Clive. Additionally, Final Fantasy 16 is set to play a pioneering role for the franchise, as it becomes the first Final Fantasy title to receive the M for Mature rating in North America.
Square Enix's host of changes to traditional Final Fantasy features is unsurprising, as the developer attempts to restore some of its lost luster with a release that is in vogue with the times. While the new additions are exciting, Square Enix would have been better off selecting a different release date to prevent a window clash with Diablo 4, which is sure to grab the attention of the RPG audience when it drops. Diablo 4 has been more than a decade in the making, and if reported features are anything to go by, it could be one of the more successful releases of 2023.
Diablo 4's Release Date Could Spell Trouble For Final Fantasy 16
It's only fitting that a well-loved franchise returns with a bang after a long silence, and developer Blizzard has put the building blocks in place for Diablo 4 to do just that. Most notably, Diablo 4 will let players choose if they want to follow the story mode or dive headfirst into the open world activities. There has been growing sentiment that open world games don't always need main narrative campaigns, and the latest entry to the Diablo franchise will be one of the first to test this notion.
Diablo 4 takes place after the events of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls and is bringing a new villain to the franchise. Cultists loyal to Mephisto have brought his daughter, Lilith, back to the mortal realm. Diablo players are not unfamiliar with Lilith, as the Daughter of Hatred has played a significant role as the creator of Sanctuary in the franchise's lore. Despite her influential contributions, Lilith has been on the back burner for much of the Diablo series, but Blizzard decided to make the Daughter of Hatred the antagonist here. Gamers got the first glimpse of Lilith in Diablo 4's cinematic trailer reveal, and the improved graphics add to her macabre aesthetic.
Details about Diablo 4's storyline have not been particularly forthcoming, as Blizzard keeps its cards close to its chest ahead of the highly anticipated release. However, inferences can be drawn from the fact that Diablo 4 is a sequel, as Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls had a few loose ends such as the Prime and Lesser Evils gaining their freedom. Each new entry to the Diablo series has added a notable story element, so Diablo 4 can be expected to pick up the ropes from Reaper of Souls and add unique narrative directions. With the new villain, the latest installment should have little trouble generating fresh content for fans.
With so many improvements slated to grace the Diablo franchise in terms of graphics and gameplay, as well as the return of several fan-favorite characters, Diablo 4 has good cause to grab fan attention in the RPG category for a solid timeframe. Final Fantasy 16, despite being a new addition to a popular franchise, will have a ton of media work to do to ensure successful numbers at launch because of the stiff competition. While the release window might make things a bit more complicated for Square Enix, the buffed-up content featured in Final Fantasy 16 should get the publisher over the line.
Final Fantasy 16 will be released on June 22, 2023, for PS5.
