An old leak about FF16 which now looks accurate.

[JJ Strife]

I hadn't seen this before, but it was posted in May on 4chan (I think?), and most of it looks pretty much accurate in retrospect. Obviously the announcement was probably delayed cos of Covid. But the interesting part is that it suggests it's gonna be open-world! Which we didn't know. That definitely aligns with my theory that they went with the traditional medieval fantasy style because they want to compete for the Witcher/Elder Scrolls audience (after noticing it's a much bigger audience than FF usually gets). Open-world would fit that idea too!


https://i.imgur.com/LG8vVsb.jpg

[WarZidane]

Doesn't look like a leak to me at all, just a lot of inaccurate guesses. This was after Yoshida mentioned a new project with that bit of art you see in the screenshot, which is why he's named, but he's not the director. The combat from what we've seen looks more inspired by fast-paced action games rather than Dark Souls, and predicting it would be action combat was a pretty safe guess.

I've seen no indication of job changes or steampunk in the trailer, the characters so far all have distinct names and changing equipment..uh, obviously. :p

[Fynn]

Yeah I’m with WZ I’m this one. A lot of it seems like lucky guesses, and there’s not really many of those in that. Some are just logical conclusions you could draw from trends, plus I’m pretty sure Yoshida has had a rumored secret project for longer? At that point a lot of people assumed/hoped it was FFXVI. The steampunk thing is a straight up contradiction since Yoshida has said this will be purely medieval

[JJ Strife]

It's mostly the announcement time that seems very unlikely that you'd guess it. Both Project Athia (this was before that was announced) and FF16, within several months of each other.

That seems quite unlikely you'd guess that. The only info we'd heard on the Yoshida project was in 2019. It could've been another 2 or 3 years before it got announced, if you didn't know anything. Same with Project Athia. Luminous Studios released Episode Ardyn in early 2019. It would seem likely it would've been quite a few years before we heard from them as well.

[Fox]

I think calling this a 'leak' is a bit of a stretch. If I had a pound for every trade show 'such and such a game is going to be announced here' I'd have a fair sum of cash.

And if it was a leak it should be accurate, but Yoshida is not the director, we've seen no hint of any steampunk element or job changes, the combat seems about as far removed from Dark Souls as I can imagine an action RPG being. Obviously there's not a lot we do know about the game but not exactly impressed by this random 4chan post lol, pretty sure some of my own speculations on Reddit have been about as on point.

[JJ Strife]

Yes but the odds of getting 2 announcements right at once is incredibly small.

If the odds of just guessing the FF16 announcement period is 1/10, and the odds of guessing Project Athia announcement period is also 1/10, then the odds of guessing both correctly is 1/100.

[Fynn]

People have been speculating on Agni’s Philosophy being turned into a game for years. This post was just lucky by assuming it wouldn’t be FFXVI but a separate project.

[WarZidane]

There's hundreds of these kinds of "leaks" all over the internet so yeah sometimes one of them will get one or two bits correct, though even the project athia part is inaccurate here because the post calls it Agni's Anthology, while in May the project likely already had the name Project Athia.

I wouldn't be surprised if the game was open world, for the record, but it's just one more thing that's easy to speculate about. It's either open world or it's not, and Square Enix has certainly been leaning towards open worlds lately.

[JJ Strife]

though even the project athia part is inaccurate here because the post calls it Agni's Anthology, while in May the project likely already had the name Project Athia.


Yeah but it seems highly likely that was a genuine behind-the-scenes name change, given that it's the same team who made the Agni's Philosophy demo, and given that the "Athia" woman looks incredibly similar (and the name is very similar).

I'd totally buy that they were calling it Agni's Anthology behind the scenes, but then just came up with a new name for the public reveal (probably because they realised most people wouldn't even remember the Agni's Philosophy demo, so it wouldn't count for anything)

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm not going to lie, the idea of a job class system in XVI, while highly unlikely, would be neat.

As for Agni's Philosophy, that was simply a tech demo for the Luminous engine, it was never meant to be a game. Same deal with the Prototype demo they released two years ago.

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Both this and Agni's Philosophy were simply meant to show off the tech and expertise of the staff to investors. Interestingly enough. A lot of elements from Agni's Philosophy made it into FFXV when you think about it. Fantasy in reality and all that.

[Fynn]

Wait, so the ninja lesbian fake FFXVI thing was actually done by SE?

[Lord Golbez]

That seems like an awful lot of work for something only intended to be a tech demo.

[Wolf Kanno]

They were showing off their new internal tech and the skill of their staff. Since it was for a share holder's meeting, they couldn't just show physics off or just some stills, you had to show them something impressive. The FFVIII tech demo for the PS2 or the VII one for the PS3 were also made like that.

[Lord Golbez]

The FF7 and FF8 tech demos were made based on already existing fmvs in the PSX games. This is more than just a demonstration of technical ability. There's creative/artistic work put into it.

[Wolf Kanno]

The FF7 and FF8 tech demos were made based on already existing fmvs in the PSX games. This is more than just a demonstration of technical ability. There's creative/artistic work put into it.

Yes, but they were also designed to show off the PlayStation hardware, whereas the original works were to show off internal engines and know how for investors. The fact it's been eight years since the Agni's Philosophy demo came out and nothing materialized from it IP wise shows they don't mind making short films like that for that reason alone.

[WarZidane]

See also: Luminous' "Backstage" tech demo, and Square Enix of course isn't the only company to do tech demos like that, Unreal likes to do it as well with things like Samaritan (2011) and the recent Unreal Engine 5 tech demo that's unlikely to become an actual game. Quantic Dream's Dark Sorcerer tech demo as well, though Quantic Dream's Kara tech demo did eventually sort of become a game in Detroit: Become Human, but it was definitely not planned at the time.

[JJ Strife]

The FFVIII tech demo for the PS2

Genuinely had no idea that existed. Why have I never heard of that?

[Wolf Kanno]

The FFVIII tech demo for the PS2

Genuinely had no idea that existed. Why have I never heard of that?

Honestly, it sounds more interesting than it really is. It's just the Balamb Graduation dance scene CGI rendered through the PS2 to show off the faster loading times.

[JJ Strife]

That's the sort of thing that would've blown me away back in 1999. I remember getting so hyped by the graphical jump between the PS1 and PS2.

Until this current upcoming generation (I've got a Series S pre-ordered), the PS2 was the only console I've ever bought on launch day.

[Lord Golbez]

PS2 was probably the last impressive graphical leap. Since then it's been incremental stuff and HD shit. I mean if we jumped right from PS2 to PS5 or even PS4 it'd be pretty impressive, but the console to console change doesn't seem like a big deal.

[JJ Strife]

It was the last time there was a huge jump from day 1. Although I think the PS3/Xbox 360 saw a bigger improvement over its lifetime. Like if you compare Elder Scrolls Oblivion (early PS3) with something like The Last of Us (late PS3), the jump in graphical quality is huge.