Skip to main content

Final Fantasy XVI State of Play: How to watch and what to expect

The next State of Play showcase will be entirely focused on one of the year’s biggest games: Final Fantasy XVI. Just over two months ahead of its June 22 release, Square Enix will reveal even more about the PlayStation 5-exclusive RPG in this Sony-backed showcase. If you’re a fan of the Final Fantasy series, today’s live stream is one that you’ll really want to tune into. If you’re wondering when and where you can do that, we’ve rounded up all of that helpful information for you.

When is the Final Fantasy XVI State of Play?

This Final Fantasy XVI-focused State of Play presentation will begin at 2 p.m. PT today, April 13. A tweet about the event from PlayStation says this State of Play will be “more than 20 minutes” long. 

Clive pets the dog in Final Fantasy XVI Final Fantasy 16
Square Enix

How to watch

The Final Fantasy XVI State of Play will be officially live-streamed by Sony on its PlayStation YouTube and Twitch channels today. Of course, you can expect sites like IGN and GameSpot, as well as Final Fantasy-focused influencers, to co-stream the event as well. We’ve embedded the livestream below so you can watch it from this article.

Final Fantasy XVI | State of Play | April 13, 2023 [ENGLISH]

What to expect

Unlike 2023’s previous State of Play, today’s showcase is focused on just one game: Final Fantasy XVI. Developed and published by Square Enix, this title has gotten a lot of attention from press previews and a PAX East panel over the past couple of months, and this live stream will likely only expand on the information about the game that we’ve gotten from those. 

Specifically, the PlayStation Blog post about this Final Fantasy XVI presentation says that it’ll specifically dive deeper into the “dark fantasy setting, the powerful Eikons and the Dominants who house them, and the flashy battle system.” After this State of Play, it seems like everyone should have a very clear idea of what to expect from Final Fantasy XVI if they didn’t already.

Editors' Recommendations

Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Sony’s cloud handheld, the PlayStation Portal, will only stream certain games
Astro's Playroom booting up on the PlayStation Portal.

Sony has unveiled the price for its upcoming cloud gaming handheld, as well as an official name for the device: PlayStation Portal. However, one significant caveat to its functionality might sour people's interest in the handheld: It only supports PS4 and PS5 native games that the owner purchased.
PlayStation VR2 games can't be streamed to PlayStation Portal, which does make sense. More bafflingly, though, is the fact that the PlayStation Blog post states that "games that are streamed through PlayStation Plus Premium’s cloud streaming are not supported." That means you shouldn't pick up PlayStation Portal expecting to stream some PS3 and PS4 games available through PlayStation Plus Premium to the device. That's certainly an odd omission when it's currently PlayStation's most notable cloud gaming effort.
Although Microsoft is more closely associated with cloud gaming, Sony beat it to releasing a dedicated cloud gaming device. PlayStation Portal was first teased as Project Q during May's PlayStation showcase, but now, a PlayStation Blog post more clearly explains what we can actually expect from the handheld. Most importantly, we learned that PlayStation Portal will cost $200, which puts it underneath the cost of a Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S, and other cloud gaming devices like the Logitech G Cloud Handheld.
As for what you're getting for that price tag, it's essentially a decent screen attached to two halves of a DualSense controller. The controllers on each side share all the functionality of the DualSense, including things like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. In-between is an 8-inch LCD screen that streams games over Wi-Fi at up to a 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. All in all, that's fairly solid for a cloud gaming handheld that is this cheap.
Sony confirmed that the PlayStation Portal will have a 3.5mm audio jack, but also used the same blog post to unveil two new wireless audio options. There's the Pulse Elite wireless headset that features a retractable boom mic and a charging hanger and Pulse Explore wireless earbuds that offer similar audio quality in earbud form.
None of these products are available for preorder or have a specific release date just yet, but they are all expected to launch before the end of the year.

Read more
More Black video game heroes shouldn’t be a fantasy
Final Fantasy 16's main cast standing together.

As a Black youth back in the early 2000s, I became an avid gamer after being introduced to Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. From there, I fell in love with nearly every game under the sun, discovering as many as I could. But it was my uncle who would really change my life forever when he showed me my first RPG in Final Fantasy 7 and bought me Kingdom Hearts. So imagine my excitement when I got to see Black characters like Barret on-screen in a heroic RPG. Sure, I’d seen Black characters in games before thanks to the beat 'em up and fighting game genres, but I was thrilled to see them in a genre where the closest thing to people of my complexion was the Black Mage. It opened my young mind to how invisible I was in so much of gaming.

Flash forward to today and you might understand why people like me were so disappointed when Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida argued that the RPG didn't include Black characters for the sake of maintaining "realism" in its European-inspired setting. It felt like a poorly argued step back, though it's not exactly an outlier in the broader industry. While video games have continued to evolve and open themselves up to new audiences through more diverse representation, many of today's biggest games from all around the world still tend to treat white male heroes as the "default" option.

Read more
PlayStation 5 Slim: All rumors and speculation
A PS5 stands on a table.

It's at around this point in a console's life cycle that companies like to release a new, slim model to reinvigorate sales, cut costs, and experiment with a new design. Sony has been trimming down its home consoles since the PS2, with each home console getting a slimmer, sometimes cheaper replacement a few years after launch. We're closing in on the PlayStation 5's third birthday and rumors abound about both a PS5 Pro and a PS5 Slim model, and yet Sony's remained tight-lipped about any iterations on the base unit. Still, some of these rumors and potential leaks may hold some weight and are fun to follow regardless to see how accurate they end up being.
Will there be a PS5 Slim? Here's what we know
Before getting into the rumors and leaks, know that until Sony itself confirms the existence of a PS5 Slim, everything that follows is speculative and should be taken as such.

The first rumors of a new PS5 model centered around a diskless version that could be paired with a detachable disk drive you could buy separately in another step away from physical media. This was speculated to be coming out sometime in fall 2023, but has been rolled into the idea of the PS5 Slim. This potentially imminent release date also lines up with statements Microsoft made about a new PS5 Slim releasing this year for $400 during the Federal Trace Commission (FTC) hearing.

Read more