Final Fantasy XVI’s Valisthea is sprawling, comprising a mix of five main nations, various more-linear dungeons, and some open field areas. The primary focus of FFXVI will be playing through Clive’s story and all it entails, but there’s more to the game than just the main scenario.
I was curious about how players will get around Valisthea, especially with developer Creative Business Unit III at the helm. In its MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, mounts are abundant. You can ride chocobos, the Regalia from Final Fantasy XV, Magitek armor, and more. There are dozens of mounts to acquire in-game, and I wondered if that would bleed over into FFXVI.
“To tell you the truth, it’s pretty much just chocobos,” FFXVI director Hiroshi Takai tells me. “In past Final Fantasy games, you’d have canoes or boats or cars to travel in. But in Final Fantasy XVI, because our game is based on that main world map and traveling from that world map and doing fast travel from that, we found that there wasn’t really a need for any kind of expanded type of traversal systems. So yeah, currently, we only have walking and the chocobos.”
However, Takai notes there are parts in the story where Clive will use other types of traversal, but these aren’t accessible elsewhere.
As Takai notes, a lot of FFXVI’s traversal happens through the game’s beautifully designed, tilt-shifted 3D map. You can fast travel from Cid’s hideaway to side quest locations or even main scenario areas. You can also travel to the game’s open field areas by way of fast travel. For the most part, fast travel is how you’ll get around. But within open field areas and more linear areas, you can walk, run, and ride a chocobo to get around, too.
I’m still hoping we’ll acquire something unique and secret, like FFXV’s Regalia Type-F, in which the car you drive around for most of the game turns into a flying vehicle. But if the director says it’s just walking and chocobos, I should temper my expectations. Fortunately, we have less than a month to go until FFXVI hits PlayStation 5 on June 22.
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