Square Enix has revealed that they do not have a day one patch planned for Final Fantasy 16.
As reported by Game Informer, no less than director Hiroshi Takai explained why.
He gave three reasons, the first one being self-evident, of course. Final Fantasy 16 just went gold, and Creative Business Unit 3 is confident that the game is ready to release.
Second is more measured, and a response to the recent spate of poor video game launches gamers have experienced this year. Takai pointed out that Square Enix wants all gamers to share the same experience.
What this means is that they want everyone to play the same version of Final Fantasy 16 at launch. If a day one patch comes up, some players will play it with the patch and some won’t, dependent on whether they download the patch beforehand.
Square Enix is mindful that some players won’t even know that they need to update the game, so they have resolved to deliberately not prepare a day one patch for this reason. If you’re wondering if this is a good idea, you can go check the first reason Takai gave.
But the third one seems contradictory to everything that they had just stated. In spite of Square’s stated confidence in the state of Final Fantasy 16 at launch, they continue to do game testing and looking for bugs. Obviously they are obligated to do it, even after seemingly perfecting the game for its pending launch.
Game development being what it is, even if they had scoured everything, there is still a possibility that there is a game issue that will slip by them and hit players at launch.
What most gamers may not realize is studios cannot commission any amount of game testing, in terms of number of game testers, or duration or scale, that can match the amount of stress testing a video game receives when it comes out at launch. Even thousands of testers can’t match millions of end users.
Square Enix had previously touted the unique features of the PlayStation 5. Final Fantasy 16 is built around the platform, making good use in particular of its fast SSD memory. That technology is utilized in both fast loading of the game and its environments, and also in producing the best graphics possible.
Final Fantasy 16 will be releasing exclusively to the PlayStation 5 on June 22, 2023.
