Combat in ‘Final Fantasy 16’ was worked on by the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ team

The Final Fantasy 16 developer team has had help from another Square Enix group, the Kingdom Hearts team, on combat mechanics in the upcoming title from the series, which earlier this month received a “Summer 2023” release date alongside a new trailer

In an interview with The Washington Post (via, GamesRadar) Naoki Yoshika (aka Yoshi-P), the producer of the next game in the Final Fantasy series, said that the Kingdom Hearts team contributed to the game’s development and being of particular help when it came to refining combat mechanics and boss battles.

“The Kingdom Hearts team at Square Enix has been especially helpful in contributing to those real-time combat and boss battles,” Yoshida said. “It can be said that the battles in FFXVI are in some ways a culmination of the company’s past experiences.”

With Kingdom Hearts games full of boss fights and real-time combat, this seems like a pairing that was always inevitable. Outside of the Kingdom Hearts series, creator Tetsuya Nomara, who led the development of the game since its inception in 2002, worked on designing characters for the Final Fantasy series, debuting with Final Fantasy 6 and continuing through the later instalments, meaning that this crossover isn’t the first of its kind.

Yoshida also believes Final Fantasy 16‘s story won’t come as a surprise to fans and will revisit familiar themes, but won’t be a happy one by all accounts. “One of the main themes that’s explored in Final Fantasy XVI’s narrative deals with a clash of ideals. What is right and wrong? Should the people live the life that was chosen for them, or should they have the right to choose the path that they walk?” Yoshida said.

In other news, EA Dice has confirmed it isn’t working on any game that isn’t Battlefield-related, as it has “no time” for anything else.