Final Fantasy XVI review for PC

After being trapped exclusively on the PS5 (our review here) since last year, Square Enix has finally released Final Fantasy XVI for PC players. Following the PS5 release, the game had been given two DLC expansions, and luckily those are included on PC. For those that wish to buy the game with DLC included, you’re looking at $70USD before tax, and a nice $50 price tag before tax without the DLC content. That said, while the port is wonderful to have, it’s not an easy to run title.

To give yourself a clue on what to expect with the performance of Final Fantasy XVI, definitely play the demo first.  It will absolutely help you gauge performance on your machine and its hardware. However, be wary that it takes some beefy parts to run smoothly. As shown on Steam, they recommend a 2080 or equivalent, a Ryzen 7 5700X, and 16 GB of (presumably, exact specs are not listed) DDR4 memory. Now, myself with an RTX 2070 Super and a Ryzen 9 3900X had a tough time getting the game to run smoothly. On medium settings at 1080p resolution, I was averaging 45fps. Comparatively, friends of mine that have RTX 3060 GPUs were having a consistent 70fps at a 1080p resolution with high or better settings.

Basically, make sure you’ve got a relatively beefy computer before trying to run XVI at higher settings. Additionally, you may run into some stutters and sporadic memory leaks. It was pretty noticeable that areas would get notable frame drops after periods of time solved via a quick game reboot. I know it’s not always a dealbreaker, but there are players out there that loathe the idea of having a random memory leak in their game.

It does offer a good slew of options for visuals and input customization, at least. Obviously it supports the DualSense from the PS5, so you’ll have native button prompts for it, as well as the ability to freely change what button prompts the game displays. Additionally, keyboard controls by default feel solid, albeit with a few strange ways to do certain commands. Using your Eikon abilities is tied to holding down the Z key by default, with Q and E being the inputs to activate them.

It’s definitely awkward on the hand, but you can rebind them in the settings to something that feels more comfortable. You’ll have shift for the Phoenix Dash and Left Alt for dodge by default, which can take some getting used to. Attacking feels intuitive as well, with left mouse being your sword swings and right mouse being your magic. This honestly works out well for getting the magic followup bursts after sword swings easily, so it’s nice to see that working out well.

Some issues that players may run into is that the game’s cutscenes are still locked to 30fps. They were the same on the PS5 release, but it’s strange to see that for the PC port. Additionally, if you have an ultrawide monitor you’ll run into some issues. The game does not have native ultrawide support, so you’ll be playing on a trimmed down screen and having cutscenes that also do not fill your full screen space. There are solutions on the internet to both of those problems, and it’s probably safe to say that Square Enix will eventually be releasing a patch to solve at least the ultrawide kerfuffle.

Overall I’d reckon that Final Fantasy XVI’s PC port IS a good one, albeit with the caveats that it has some beefy requirements to run at higher frame rates and resolutions. It’s a phenomenal game that is now available to a wider audience, so I’d highly recommend checking it out if you’ve got the hardware. Otherwise, if you’re on a bit older hardware (such as myself) from early 2020 or before, I’d definitely recommend holding off and getting upgrades first, or deal with reduced visual quality, resolution, and framerates. I for one wouldn’t want to buy the game to have to play at 720p for 30fps in 2024. Final Fantasy XVI is definitely a great game and a great port if you’ve got the hardware to run it, though I do wish it ran better on slightly older hardware.

Note: Square Enix provided us with a Final Fantasy XVI PC code for review purposes.