Final Fantasy XVI game producer Naoki Yoshida posted a statement on the game's official Twitter account, stating that "complications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have delayed the game's development by nearly half a year."
While the team originally stated that Square Enix would reveal more information about the game in 2021, that is no longer the case. Instead, Square Enix will reveal more information about the game in Spring 2022.
Yoshida explained the issues surrounding the development in more detail, stating:
The latest addition to the FINAL FANTSY series in development for PlayStation 5, FINAL FANTASY XVI, has brought together a sizable team comprised of talented creators from around the world. However, in an effort to offset the effects of COVID-19, we have had to decentralize this workforce allowing staff to carry out their assignments from home. Unfortunately, this hampered communication from the Tokyo office, which in turn led to delays – or, in extreme cases, cancellations – in asset deliveries from our third-party partners.
That said, we spent much of 2021 addressing this issue and hope to see its impact to a minimum in the year to come, allowing us to better focus on the tasks at hand: increasing the quality of graphics, refining combat mechanics , developing the battles, putting the finishing touches on the scenes and conducting general graphical optimization. Our main goal now is to be as active as possible in the game to see it fully polished.
Final Fantasy XVI will be released for the PS5 as an exclusive game. While an initial live-streamed trailer listed a PC release, the online version of the same trailer and the game's website did not list a PC version .
Source: ANN
