Ukraine war delayed the recent Final Fantasy 16 trailer, claims producer

The producer of Final Fantasy 16 has claimed that the war in Ukraine delayed the game’s recent trailer.

Speaking to Dengeki Online, Naoki Yoshida claimed that he was worried that the ongoing situation would cast a different light on the content of the trailer.

“Actually, it was ready to be released in March, but at the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made the world situation unstable,” Yoshida said.

“Since Final Fantasy 16 deals with a rather heavy theme as a story, I wondered if the second trailer was released at this time if it would be truly enjoyable for gamers. When I told SIE about that feeling, SIE was also worried about it, so I decided to postpone the release after thorough discussions.”

The trailer was eventually shown during Sony’s June State of Play stream. The trailer showed off the new combat system as well as the large-scale battles that will feature in the game.

Final Fantasy 16 is the latest in a series of upcoming games that have been affected by the war in Ukraine. It’s understood that a remake of 007 Goldeneye is due to be announced soon, but has been delayed due to a large amount of Russian content in the game. 

Yoshida recently claimed that the game is near the end of development. That’s after he said last December that Final Fantasy XVI’s development had fallen almost half a year behind schedule.

Yoshida also recently claimed that the game will have a unique approach to difficulty. 

In an interview with Famitsu, Yoshida explained that the game will have an action-based battle system, similar to something like Kingdom Hearts, rather than a traditional turn-based battle system as seen in most previous Final Fantasy games.