The first new game we saw at Sony's September PS5 event was a big one: Final Fantasy XVI. Only one trailer has been shown for this game so far, but we know a few important things about it. It has a dark fantasy storyline, a real-time combat system, familiar Final Fantasy faces, and it's exclusive to PS5.

The trailer shows the game's protagonist, Joshua, battling (and presumably fighting alongside) familiar Final Fantasy summoned spirits such as Shiva, Efreet, and Bahamut. The story seems a bit confusing without more detail, but the basics are simple. Joshua is in the middle of a chaotic war, which is somehow caused by the "crystal" (a mainstay of the Final Fantasy series, often representing some primal or elemental force).

The FFXVI trailer we saw has two interesting aspects: first, it uses a real-time combat system with a single protagonist, which is unusual for a Final Fantasy game. The second is that the game will be released exclusively for the PS5, which seems to be very significant for Sony.

In the trailer, Joshua is seen facing traditional Final Fantasy enemies such as Malboros and Kool. He uses a sword and elemental magic, all in standard FF fashion. What is unusual here is that he was not seen fighting alongside his party members; "FFXII" and "FFXV" also had real-time combat systems, but only with two or three party members. If "FFXVI" really is a one-party game like "Dark Souls" or "The Witcher," it will be very different from previous "FF" games. [The "Final Fantasy" series has not had a Sony exclusive title since "Final Fantasy X-2" was released. Since then, nearly every FF game has been released on Xbox, PC, or both. However, it is important to remember that Final Fantasy was initially exclusive to Nintendo's consoles. The PlayStation exclusivity began with Final Fantasy VII. And just as FFVII was eventually released on every system under the sun, perhaps FFXVI will be released on other platforms, albeit many, many years down the road.

Since Final Fantasy XVI still has no price or release date, all we can say is that it will probably be released on PS5 within the next few years. Also, we expect to hear more news from Square Enix before then, so we will post another article as soon as we get more information about FFXVI. Until then, you can play the majority of the series on all current console platforms, from PS4 to Steam to Nintendo Switch.