The developers of The Last Fantasy 16 revealed that it will take players around 35 hours to get through the game’s story and 70-80 hours to do everything else along with it.
In an interview with Famitsu (translated by Twitter user @aitaikimochi), director Hiroshi Takai and producer Naoki Yoshida said they calculated the playtime for Final Fantasy 16’s story mode to account for gamers having busy lives outside of video games, so they wrote it in a way that allows the player to just do the bare minimum if they are too busy to do any side quests. At first, the team aimed for 20 hours, but the additional content they included increased the story length to 35 hours.
“When the game was first started in development, I had in mind that gamers these days are really busy with other things, so I wanted them to at least be able to aim to complete the story,” said Yoshida speak. “I think making the game something that you can finish in about 20 hours would make sense, but more and more things are pouring in.”
“[Final Fantasy 16] is a story-driven game that will take you on a roller coaster ride,” said Takai. “You’ll see the full Clive way of life and the game will likely take around 35 hours to complete. If we included extra content, it would double that amount.”
By “double that,” Takai means gameplay time for side content is between 70 and 80 hours, depending on how engaged players are — and there’s a lot of work to be done. In order to reach the maximum playtime mentioned by Yoshida and Takai, players will need to complete side quests, make the most of abilities, purchase all the accessories, and complete every monster hunt.
In addition to the story mode and side quests, there will also be a new Game+ mode called Final Fantasy Mode, which will allow players to transfer stats from the previous game file to the new game file. The difficulty level of Final Fantasy Mode seems to be comparable to Pride Mode in Kingdom Hearts, meaning it will take you longer to beat everything. And for players who want more, there will be a leaderboard that will allow everyone to compete with other players around the world.
Final Fantasy 16 will be released on June 22. For more information, see hands-on preview with the gameor what we know about the world of Final Fantasy 16.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to a variety of publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
