Summary
A recent Nvidia driver update may have prematurely revealed thatFinal Fantasy 16is set to launch on PC imminently. Although it’s been common knowledge for some time that developer Square Enix is working on a PC port ofFinal Fantasy 16, its exact release window has been up in the air.
Final Fantasy 16originally launched in June 2023 as a timed PlayStation 5 exclusive. The highly-anticipated JRPG accrued mostly positive reviews and impressed many fans with its high-caliber graphics and kaiju-esque Eikon battles. The good news kept on coming with its commercial performance too, asFinal Fantasy 16achieved the highest sales debut for a PS5 game in Japanand went on to sell over 3 million copies worldwide. There was some consternation overFinal Fantasy 16’s total sales numbers as Square Enix reported losses in the following quarters, but the company claims that it is satisfied with the game.
Back in September 2023, Square Enix confirmed thatFinal Fantasy 16’s PC version was in development, but didn’t commit to a release window at the time. It was widely assumed that the game would land on PC sometime after June 2024 due to the PS5 exclusivity agreement, and now that it’s over, it seems the PC release ofFinal Fantasy 16could happen imminently.Reddit user m_w_hrecently discovered agame-ready driver profile forFinal Fantasy 16in Nvidia’s latest 560.81 GPU driver update. These optimizations are usually carried out when a game is ready to go, which suggestsFinal Fantasy 16’s PC release is very near.
Latest Nvidia PC Driver Update Has Hidden Optimizations for Final Fantasy 16
Even though Square Enix was bound by the PS5 timed exclusivity contract,Final Fantasy 16’s developers have been quite open about the PC port’s progress. Producer Naoki Yoshida confirmed thatFinal Fantasy 16’s PC version was in the final stages of optimizationback in March 2024, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that it would be ready for release by now. Yoshida also revealed that a playable demo forFinal Fantasy 16on PC is in the planning stages, but with the entire PC port seemingly finished already, Square Enix may just opt to launch the game outright.
Additionally, Yoshida confirmed features like ultra-wide support, unlocked framerates over 100fps, dedicated mouse and keyboard controls, revamped code for better performance, and more, which should all make for apretty special PC port forFinal Fantasy 16.
