Final Fantasy XVI boldly departs from series traditions in many ways, including its marketing strategy. Since its release, we’ve known that Producer Naoki Yoshida intends to maintain interest in Final Fantasy XVI in the long term, with a sales plan that should last 18 months. It appears that we’re starting to see that plan put into action now, as Final Fantasy XVI has received a free update that gives players a reason to dip back into Valisthea again.
This patch’s main feature is the new skins added for the main characters. Clive, Torgal, and a few other key characters now have new looks that you can toggle by visiting the Arete Stone at your hideaway. You can see these in a new trailer Square Enix has uploaded to the Final Fantasy YouTube channel.
Note that there are some spoilers in the video below. The extent of how spoilery it is depends on your story progress, but anyone with the “Twin Flames” trophy has nothing to worry about.
Additionally, the update will also let players customize Clive’s sword. If you liked how an older weapon looked, you can now slap it on your current armament as a skin. I don’t know if this will appease Glamour fanatics from Final Fantasy XIV, but it’s certainly a welcome addition.
— FINAL FANTASY XVI (@finalfantasyxvi) September 3, 2023
Arcade mode sees rebalancing as well
While the new skins are the selling point of this update, they’re not the only thing that has changed. On the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, we can see a full list of official 1.10 Patch Notes. Many of these notes include the usual tweaks you’d expect, like making air combos easier or letting players use Eikonic abilities after parries faster.
One of the biggest changes here, however, is to Arcade Mode. Each stage will now have a time limit to prevent strategies that let players “continually amass points over time.” For this reason, leaderboards in Final Fantasy XVI will reset to reflect this new setup. Older scores won’t be deleted outright, though, and a future update will make those visible on their own legacy leaderboard.
Overall, I like this update. I imagine most who have finished the game will at most pop in, look at the new stuff, and say, “oh that’s neat,” before turning the game off again. But for those currently playing, these are all certainly welcome features. Just note that some of these perks won’t appear until you clear certain chapters of the main story.
Final Fantasy XVI and its respective update is available exclusively on the PlayStation 5.
