Final Fantasy Fans Just Got Bad News
"Final Fantasy" fans have had to endure bad news after bad news at the tail end of 2021 — between the uproar that came after the horrible PC port of "Final Fantasy 7 Remake" and "Final Fantasy 14" being pulled from shelves because of ridiculously overcrowded servers, the last quarter of 2021 wasn't looking too hot for the series. Even more bad news was shared on December 27, though, as fans learned that "Final Fantasy 16" will be pushed back to Spring 2022.
The game's producer, Naoki Yoshida, explained on Twitter that the game ran into multiple issues because of the coronavirus pandemic. According to Yoshida, communication between workers in Tokyo and "outsource partners" was affected by having employees work from home. Yoshida went on to explain that the team has worked hard to minimize future communication mishaps and that workers will be able to focus better on the remaining holes in the game in 2022. He also left fans with a promise that "Final Fantasy 16" would be shown off at some point in Spring 2022, giving fans a preview of what's to come.
While the news wasn't great, fans took it relatively well, especially considering that Twitter can sometimes bring the worst reactions out of people.
Final Fantasy fans are very understanding
As the news about the delay of "Final Fantasy 16" spread, the Twitter thread was filled with support and well wishes from fans of the series. In fact, one fan went so far as to apologize on the community's behalf for memes that were previously shared about the lack of information on the game.
Fans were quick to thank Yoshida for the transparency, which was a key part of the announcement from Square Enix about "Final Fantasy 14" as well. Others pointed out that it wasn't much of a delay at all, and some even started predicting release windows.
This wasn't the first time that the coronavirus pandemic affected the development of video games — plenty of games have been pushed back throughout the year. More notably, some games weren't delayed when they maybe should've been, which led to botched releases in the midst of the pandemic, like the "Cyberpunk 2077" disaster.
Considering how open Square Enix is being about the state of its games, "Final Fantasy 16" is hopefully on track to avoid a disastrous release related to pandemic issues. At the very least, fans will hopefully get enough content to last them until the next addition to the beloved series is available to play.