Those of you considering playing Final Fantasy 16 on PC whenever it launches will want to make sure you have an SSD in your rig.
Back in September, when Final Fantasy 16’s DLC was announced, it was also finally revealed that a PC port was in the works (something everyone generally knew anyway). We still don’t know when the previously PS5-exclusive game will be launching on PC, or even what kind of specs you’ll need to run it, but in a recent interview with Famitsu, producer Naoki Yoshida did confirm one thing at the very least: you’ll need an SSD. As translated by PCGamesN, Yoshida touched on the PC release, saying, “Details will be announced in due course. However, I would like you to prepare an SSD. Even if we did our best to adjust the GPU, in Final Fantasy 16, a game where loading speed is critical, the HDD would be a pain.
“Of course, we will do our best to optimise as much as possible, but we cannot overcome the hardware barrier alone, so please consider that an SSD is a must. We will announce the exact recommended specifications on another occasion.”
For those unfamiliar with the differences between an HDD and SSD, the latter are faster because they read data digitally, making it a lot easier to run big, flashy games. As a result of them being better, though, they’re also often more expensive than HDDs per gigabyte, so many PCs won’t come with one built in. Knowing how visually intense Final Fantasy 16 is as a game, it’s not exactly surprising that you’ll likely need an SSD for it, though it obviously might come as a bit of a disappointment to those with slightly older rigs hoping to try the game out.
In the same interview, Yoshida also said that you probably shouldn’t expect a sequel to Final Fantasy 16.