When you’re creating a fantasy product in 2022, it’s hard to go long before parallels with, or comparisons are made to, iconic titles such as HBO’s Game Of Thrones television series, and both of the adaptations of The Witcher, both the Netflix live-action series, but also the video games that CD Projekt Red developed and crushed with their 2015 Game Of The Year winning The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. So how, in such a market, does anyone else get a look in? Well, it certainly helps when you’re a 30+-year-old IP that has been consistently dominant for the bulk of that time. But even for an IP as renowned as Final Fantasy, it’s important to consume what the competition is delivering, and use that data to inform your own process. Players are noticing parallels between both Final Fantasy and those competitors, and so in an IGN interview Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, Final Fantasy XVI‘s Localisation Director, addressed the comparisons.
During the interview with IGN, the comparison was put to Fox, Final Fantasy XVI‘s Clive being drawn with The Witcher‘s Geralt. To this, Fox said,
While we are ultimately aiming for something that we hope can stand alone on its own merits, the truth is, there are a lot of fans of Game of Thrones on the development team, and so you will find some instances of similarity in narrative themes and character design. For the most part, however, these similarities usually don’t extend much beyond a few outward features, be they concerning appearance or characterization.
And that isn’t limited to Game of Thrones. Look hard enough, and you’ll find bits and pieces from many different types of media — be they novels, games, movies, anime, or manga. Drawing inspiration from other works is often how a lot of ideas are conceptualized in the early stages of development. When describing how you’d like a certain battle blocked, it is simply more effective to say, “like that one scene in so-and-so” and then work from there to give it its own life. The same can be said for characters. Broad strokes like Indiana Jones cocky, but with the looks of Vigo from Ghostbusters 2; help get everyone on the same page.
With comparisons being drawn to both Game Of Thrones and The Witcher, and Fox acknowleding as such, it’ll be interesting to see what traits we see of the Jon Snow’s or Geralt’ and Yenefer’s of the world seeping through the pores of Clive, and the various other key cast members. It will be fascinating to see how these external influences continue to inspire the character design of Final Fantasy XVI.
