Square Enix

During The Game Awards 2023 Square Enix has revealed Visions of Mana, a new game in the Mana series after 15 years. The Mana series started in 1991 with Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Final Fantasy Adventure in the US and Mystic Quest in Europe).

The game take players on a new adventure with protagonist Val, a soul guard assigned to protect his childhood friend, who has been chosen by the Faerie as the Alm of Fire to travel to the Tree of Mana and rejuvenate the mana flow.

Visions of Mana will be released in 2024 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Steam.

During the Voices from Valisthea, a Final Fantasy XVI panel at PAX West 2023 Naoki Yoshida, the producer of Final Fantasy XVI, has announced in a video message that a new update is now available. Also he announced that the development team is working on two installments of paid downloadable content and the PC version.

The new update, version 1.001.000 (on the title screen version 1.10), contains the feature to change the outfit for Clive, Jill, Joshua, Torgal and Ambrosia and the feature to change the weapon skin.

Here are the patch notes:

Makes the following changes to Arcade Mode:

• Adds a time limit to each stage.
  • This change is intended to correct an issue wherein certain abilities could be used to continually amass points over time, allowing for scores greater than envisioned.
  • You can continue to play as normal after the time limit is exceeded, but any further actions will not add to your score.
• Reduces the scores awarded by the abilities Rime and Gouge.
  • Please note that in this and future updates, we plan to adjust the scoring system in order to reward the creative chaining of multiple abilities. We will continue to assess how scores in Arcade Mode are calculated in order to maintain its challenge.
• Introduces a new leaderboard for players who have this update installed. Players who do not install the update can continue to view and record their high scores to the old leaderboard.
  • After installing this update, you will no longer be able to view or record high scores to the old leaderboard. However, scores recorded to the previous leaderboard will not be deleted. We plan to make previous leaderboards visible to all players in a future update.

Makes the following changes to the System menu:

• Adds an Adaptive Triggers option to the Game Settings menu, which allows you to turn the wireless controller's trigger effect function on or off.
• Adds a Target Cycle option to the Game Settings menu, which allows you to choose one of four different methods of changing targets while locked on to an enemy.
• Adjusts the functionality of the Player Follow (Attack) option in the Camera Settings menu, in order to correct an issue wherein the camera position would reset after some attacks even when this option was turned off.
• Adds a Controller Volume option to the Sound Settings menu, which allows you to adjust the volume of sound effects played through the wireless controller's speaker. - Adjusts the functionality of the Visual Alerts option in the Sound Settings menu, so that a preview of the alerts is displayed when the setting is turned on, and a confirmation dialog appears when the setting is changed.
• Fixes some text issues.

Fixes the following issues:

• An issue wherein enemies' actions did not trigger correctly in boss encounters under certain conditions.
• An issue wherein the collision detection threshold could be crossed in boss encounters under certain conditions.
• An issue wherein certain characters' actions did not trigger correctly.
• An issue wherein notorious marks did not appear under certain conditions.
• An issue wherein notorious marks appeared in different locations to that indicated on the hunt board.
• An issue wherein holding down the touch pad button would display the local map when the Wireless Controller Layout option was set to Type F.
•  An issue wherein certain weapons could not be crafted in Final Fantasy mode, as the materials required to craft them were not available in that mode.
• A multi-language issue wherein certain entries in The Thousand Tomes could not be found using the Search by Name function.
• An issue wherein game progress was not correctly carried over when transferring save data from the demo version to the full version.
• Several minor text issues.

Final Fantasy XVI, the latest standalone entry in the Final Fantasy series, is now available on PlayStation 5.

Final Fantasy XVI introduces players to an all-new story in the Final Fantasy universe, an epic dark fantasy that takes place in the realms of Valisthea – a land blessed in the light of the Mothercrystals, and where peace falters as the spread of the Blight threatens to destroy their dominions. The fate of the land is decided by the Eikons, mighty summoned beasts and their Dominants, men and women who have been blessed with the ability to call upon and wield them. This is the tale of Clive Rosfield, a warrior granted the title “First Shield of Rosaria” and sworn to protect his younger brother Joshua, the Dominant of the Phoenix, Eikon of Fire. Before long, Clive will be caught up in a great tragedy and swear revenge on the Dark Eikon known as Ifrit, a mysterious entity that brings calamity in its wake.

So what are you waiting for?! Go and get Final Fantasy XVI and enjoy! If you want a preview of the game, go and download the demo which let you play the prologue of the game.

During the Final Fantasy XVI Pre-Launch Celebration live event that was streamed yesterday Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XVI will actually be getting a day one patch.

The patch will be around 300 MB and will contain the following fixes and optimizations:

• Fix a control flag issue which can make progress impossible under very specific circumstances;
• Fix an issue wherein the game could close unexpectedly under very specific circumstances;
• Optimize performance in several places;
• Fix some minor text errors.

At first the development team said that they've worked hard to release the game without a day one patch for which they apologised during the live event.

Also during the live event producer Naoki Yoshida mentioned that the game was initially planned to ship on two discs, but about six months before the release the development team they managed to fit the game on one disc to reduce production costs.

Final Fantasy XVI will be released on 22 June 2023 exclusively on PlayStation 5. In Japan digital billboards will be on display starting tomorrow and also the below TV commercial will be aired.