Final Fantasy XVI’s Latest Patch Doesn’t Fix PS5 Crash Issue

Square Enix has pushed a new update out for Final Fantasy XVI. It addresses one issue fans have had with it since its launch, but it doesn’t seem to be dealing with another one that seems to be more serious.

As revealed by Square Enix on the official updates page, patch 1.03 comes with these changes:

• Adds the following items to the System tab of the Main Menu:
  • Motion Blur Strength
  • Allows the player to adjust the strength of the motion blur effect when the character or camera is in motion. The default setting is the maximum of 5. This can be lowered to reduce the strength of the motion blur effect, or set to 0 to turn it off completely.
  • Player Follow (Movement)
  • Player Follow (Attack)
  • Turning these settings off prevents the camera from automatically following the player while moving and attacking respectively.
• Changes the maximum setting of the Camera Sensitivity (Horizontal) and Camera Sensitivity (Vertical) items from 10 to 20.
• Adds three new controller layouts: types D, E, and F.
• Corrects an issue that affected the stability of some menus.
• Corrects some text issues.
• Adds the hashtag #FF16 when sharing screenshots or video clips on Twitter or YouTube.

The big issue fans had that was addressed with this update was the motion blur. Regardless if Square Enix had an artistic effect in mind when they added this to the game, motion blur can be unpopular with gamers. It should also be worth considering that it can be a potential disability or impairment issue, similar to that some experience when they see flashing lights.

So it’s generally a good thing that Square Enix addressed this issue. But why are they not fixing or even acknowledging the overheating and crashing issue?
As we reported a few days ago, Square Enix and Sony have remained mum on what is now clearly a real issue with Final Fantasy XVI causing consoles to overheat and crash.

Their failure to address the issue is actively harming their own consumers, who are playing one of the highest selling titles on the PlayStation 5, and unaware that they stand a risk to making their consoles malfunction. That could lower the lifetime for those consoles as well, but this is all unnecessary.

It’s not clear why Sony and Square Enix alike are still not talking about this issue, but if they think they can get away with silence, that’s just going to leave their own consumers to deal with broken consoles on their own.