While Game of Thrones ended its run in 2019, it’s hard to deny its reach when it comes to pop culture and the impact it had on viewers. Case in point: Square Enix devs have confirmed that the upcoming action-RPG Final Fantasy 16 was inspired by Game of Thrones in more ways than one,
Speaking during the Final Fantasy 16 launch celebration Q&A, Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and Creative Director Kazutoyo Maehiro both confirmed that FF16 was inspired by Game of Thrones in terms of art style and even “tone” of dialogue.
Kazutoyo Maehiro: Game of Thrones is a fantastic piece of fantasy, and I’m a fan myself. I think the most significant inspiration we took from it was the art direction. As you all know, Game of Thrones is a work of fantasy, and that means it has these really unique character designs, settings, and worlds, but at the same time, they all feel like they could exist in real life. That’s throughout the whole of the series, everything is sort of really directed with this great balance and keeping it all together.
You know, this might look quite easy, but it’s actually super difficult to achieve. It’s because it’s a real case of balance, and as soon as that balance gets thrown off, people watching or reading are going to think, “there’s something not quite right here,” and as soon as that gets into their heads, it’s going to completely break immersion.
What we wanted to do with 16 is achieve something similar with that really high level of immersion. That’s the way we approached it from the story, game design, levels, even the background music, we really want to create this immersive world. But of course, 16’s story is its own unique story. It’s the tale of Clive Rosfield. There will be political aspects, there will be moral quandaries within the story, but first and foremost, it’s just a real focus narrative on Clive Rosfield’s story.
Michael-Christopher Koji Fox – I wouldn’t say though, that Games of Thrones gets to lay sole claim to all of the brothels, and evil mothers, and brutal beheadings in fantasies. But that said, we did use Game of Thrones television series as kind of a guideline as how we’re going to approach the level of tone of dialogue in the game. We wanted to do something that was fantasy, and felt really fantasy, but was not going to alienate users that weren’t really familiar with that older type of English that is attributed to fantasy literature.
Game of Thrones had this really good balance of authenticity mixed with this maturity and also familiarity that ultimately felt really dramatic, as well as accessible, and we wanted to emulate that. It has that feeling, when they say something, oh that’s something I would say if I lived in that time.
Well, there you have it. Can we expect a Joffrey Baratheon-type of antagonist in the game? I sure hope so — especially if we can extract some revenge on ’em in the course of the game.
Final Fantasy 16 will be released this June 22 but a demo is out now on PS5! You can download it here so your PS5 will be ready by the time you turn it on.
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That’s great they got inspiration from Game of Thrones, the demo is very cinematic heavy. I know it’s the prologue, but it doesn’t have alot of actual playing. I watched every cinematic without skipping, and playing is few and far between. I was surprised you play as Joshua towards the end of the demo.