Final Fantasy XVI Will Use A “Tried-and-True” Existing Engine; Project Athia Will Be Square Enix’s Visually Mindblowing Project on New Tech – Rumor

The yet to be revealed Final Fantasy XVI will be powered by an existing engine, which should make development go smoother than it did for previous entries in the series, according to rumors.

Speaking on the ResetEra forums, APZonerunner, features editor at VG247, revealed some interesting details on Square Enix's future projects, saying that the next main entry in the popular JRPG series will use a tried-and-true existing engine, which is likely the Unreal Engine 4, which Square Enix used for both Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III. It will be Project Athia the visually mindblowing project from the publisher that will be powered by new technology.

This is, apparently, also the reason why Project Athia was shown during the PlayStation 5 Future of Gaming event, as Sony seemingly wanted to push games that could showcase the console's technical abilities better.

I will also say I think the game made less sense at that June event once the parameters seemed to settle on it being an event to more strictly showcase PS5's technical ability, thus the impressive Ratchet/Horizon demos etc. In that sense, Athia fit better, as Athia is SE's forward-looking, visually mindblowing project on new tech more-so than the next FF, which afaik will use a tried-and-true existing engine.

Final Fantasy XVI was supposed to be revealed back in June, according to rumors, and it may have some sort of PlayStation 5 exclusivity. If this is indeed the case, it wouldn't be surprising to finally see it unveiled during the next PlayStation 5 showcase event, which will be held later this week, on September 16th.

Final Fantasy XVI has yet to be revealed officially. We will let you know more about the game as soon as more come in on it, so stay tuned for all the latest news.