Sony Playstation’s State of Play showcase ended with a bang in the form of a new trailer for Final Fantasy XVI. From the gorgeous cinematics, the high spectacle of particles flying across the screen, and to the beautiful orchestra music blasting throughout, this was unabashedly a snippet of what the franchise has come to make us love. At first glance it may be overwhelming with just how much was shown, but after a rewatch (or two), there are certainly some gameplay elements that tell us so much about what could be coming.

There were a few new areas of gameplay the audience was exposed to during this trailer. The fighting segments specifically provided some information as to how the new mechanics may work. Early in the trailer, we got a look at our protagonist, Clive Rosfield doing his best Squall impression while leaning against a wall. Later on, we see him put his sword to use against a number of different enemies, and different enemy counts. It looks as though the fighting style is taking another slight shift towards being more fast-paced, action orientated battles, at least when utilizing the traditional human characters such as with Clive (more on that later). These same sequences showed combination attacks that looked like they could even be taken airborne. This reminded me of a similar JRPG that came out last year in Tales of Arise where the character’s attacks are much more real time (comparatively to past Tales games) and different combinations can be pulled off depending on the abilities and party members.

What was most intriguing about these fight scenes though, was the subtle hints dropped via the hud.

During a fight scene, on the bottom left of the player screen, we have our item menu, which is a long standing staple in the final fantasy universe. The bottom right shows our player’s abilities, or at least the first layer of accessible abilities. We see though on this particular screen shot that the Shiva summon looks to be providing our protagonist with an ability called Cold Snap. This gets even more intriguing when we draw our eye up to the top left, just beside the health bar. We can see that the user has Shiva selected, and potentially Garuda and Ifrit on standby, indicating how we may be using elemental abilities in this iteration of the Final Fantasy series. And on the topic of the summons, this trailer’s true main focus was showcasing the approach FF XVI will take on the legendary beings.

The trailer did not pull its punches when it came to the summons, named Eikons in this game. Whether you know and refer to them as Eidelons, Espers, Summons, or my personal favorite Guardian Forces (GFs for short), every iteration of Final Fantasy has found a way to include these iconic beings as a significant part of their game. The scenes featuring the Eikons felt big and boisterous, and the cinematic shots of each of the revealed titans (one is actually named Titan) told a different story. The trailer even dedicated part of its orchestral performance to announcing the summon’s names, complete with character screenshots, mid trailer.

The title of this cinematic was ‘Dominance’, which couldn’t be more fitting with the huge Eikon versus Eikon fights that were demoed. Perhaps pulling inspiration from classic Kaiju fights, or more recently something like the popular manga/anime Attack on Titan, Square Enix made sure to display that they are unafraid of placing their hat in the ring, with their version of city leveling fights.

We know that this iteration of summons are controlled or embodied by humans known as Dominants. Interestingly enough the newly shown character, Hugo Kupka, looks eerily similar to Titan. This could mean that Eikons potentially have some influence over how the host characters both look and act, guiding the decisions they will make throughout the story. We’ve been told prior to this trailer that our hero of the story is the Dominant of the Phoenix, but we are not absolutely sure what this could mean for his ability to host or borrow from the other summons. I for one am extremely excited for the Eikons in this game, everything from the lore to these massive fights between the classic summon characters Final Fantasy fans such as myself, have come to love.

Final Fantasy XVI is being developed by Creative Business Unit III, a group under the Square Enix umbrella. The trailer today announced a release window of Summer 2023 to the PS5, but we also know it will be coming to PC as well.