When Can You Play The Final Fantasy 16 Demo?

Square Enix recently gave journalists an opportunity to play through a preview of "Final Fantasy 16," and the early reactions have been largely positive. While the M-rated game is significantly darker and more violent than previous entries in the series, the new combat system and sense of scale garnered praise from the first people to play it. Naturally, as soon as the positive write-ups started hitting the web, fans began asking when they would get their own chance to play a "Final Fantasy 16" demo.

Well, fans are in luck, because a playable demo for "Final Fantasy 16" is indeed on the way. It should be noted, however, that this demo won't be quite the same as the hands-on preview recently experienced by the gaming press. That demo picked up roughly five hours into the campaign and featured a few other differences from the final product. Here's what we know about the upcoming demo for "Final Fantasy 16," including when fans can finally check it out for themselves.

During an interview with Famitsu, "Final Fantasy 16" director/producer Naoki Yoshida revealed that the demo for the game should be released roughly two weeks before the official launch of the game. Considering the game comes out June 22, that would put the demo release somewhere around the second week of June (provided that Square Enix sticks to this strategy). 

Yoshida also said that, unlike the demo provided to journalists in February, the publicly released demo will begin at the very start of the game. This will allow players to better ease into the new combat system and other mechanics being introduced in the new game, not to mention its epic story. Even better, Yoshida explained, he hopes that player's save progress from the demo will carry over to the full game when purchased, meaning folks who completed the demo may not have to go back to the very beginning on launch day.