Final Fantasy XVI Producer Always Wanted to Avoid Relying on DLC Like Final Fantasy XV

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Final Fantasy XVI Producer Criticizes Final Fantasy XV DLC Practices

We recently interviewed Final Fantasy XVI staff at PAX East 2024, namely producer Naoki Yoshida who emphasized his desire for the game to be a full, complete release sans DLC.

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We recently interviewed Final Fantasy XVI staff at PAX East 2024, namely producer Naoki Yoshida and DLC director Takeo Kujiraoka, discussing the upcoming The Rising Tide DLC while reflecting on the development process of Final Fantasy XVI as a whole

Final Fantasy XVI Producer Always Wanted to Avoid Relying on DLC Like Final Fantasy XV​

We recently interviewed Final Fantasy XVI staff at PAX East 2024, namely producer Naoki Yoshida and DLC director Takeo Kujiraoka, discussing the upcoming The Rising Tide DLC while reflecting on the development process of Final Fantasy XVI as a whole.

In response to our asking Yoshida about his feelings and initial expectations regarding the DLC content following Final Fantasy XVI’s initial launch, he emphasized how he wanted the original release to be a complete experience. Further, he explicitly uses Final Fantasy XV as an example of a result he wanted to avoid, where that title relied on DLC significantly for crucial story moments while also suffering from cancellations.

You can view our quoted exchange below:

Regarding the DLC announcement, was it expected that the DLC for Final Fantasy XVI would come at launch, or did that come after the reception, and you thought there’s more to be told here?
Yoshi P: It was probably about eight years ago when I first started developing a concept for Final Fantasy XVI. It was just myself, the main director, Takai-san, and the creative director, Maehiro-san. The three of us talked about what kind of story we wanted to create, what type of systems we wanted to implement, and how many Eikons-versus-Eikons battles we wanted to have in the game. And we started with eight elements, so eight battles. But as we got further into those discussions, we realized after looking at the schedule and production costs we wouldn’t have enough to make all the battles. So we decided to make one of them a lost Eikon, and that became Leviathan, the lost.
But the plan was that Eikon would always exist. And, if, by chance, we got the opportunity to make a DLC after the game was released, then that would be the story that we would tell. With the development of Final Fantasy XVI, the one thing that I really wanted to avoid was creating a game that, at launch, wasn’t complete and that you would need to play DLC to understand the main scenario. I did not want to do that.
We had Final Fantasy XV, which was released before XVI, and they announced four DLCs but had to cancel two. There were parts of the story that you couldn’t get unless you played the DLC. That is something that, from the beginning, we didn’t want to happen for Final Fantasy XVI.
We wanted to have a full, complete experience with the main game. As we got closer to the main game’s release, we received responses from the media and players from the launch events and demo, which was very good. Seeing that, I thought, “Okay, maybe this response is going to be good. This may be a chance for us to explore the idea of doing DLC.” Taking that and talking to the team, we already had this idea for Leviathan that we could bring in and incorporate into the DLC.
In addition, we have Echoes of the Fallen, which is this last dungeon-type experience for Clive, and bring those experiences in. Once we received that feedback and that good response, the game was released, and we continued to receive high praise. We want to thank the players for giving us such great feedback, which allowed us to release these new systems and tell the rest of our story.

Keep an eye out for our full interview.