Nvidia have added a Final Fantasy XVI driver profile, fuelling PC release hopes

Hmmm... it could be nothing, but the technomancers at Nvidia have just updated their graphics drivers, and among the list of game profiles now listed in their control panel tool is Final Fantasy XVI. The blockbuster JRPG isn't out on PC yet, and developers Square Enix have not given a concrete release date for it, but this does seem to be prep work for the inevitable. And with Squeenix in attendance at Gamescom, it's possible we'll know more soon.

The clue was spotted by a Reddit user who tracks Nvidia updates, pointing out that the most recent update "has game ready driver profiles for 'Final Fantasy XVI' and 'Once Human', just not in the official driver release notes". And sure enough, if you check in the control panel's 3D settings after updating, the JRPG is there.

Nvidia work with developers to have reliable drivers prepped for the moment a big game drops, and this would be no exception. Some folks (like those hawkeyes at Resetera) seem to be hankering for a "shadow drop" at Gamescom.

To put things in perspective, the PS5 version of the game released 13 months ago. Previously, the nostalgia bomb of Final Fantasy VII Remake took 1 year and 8 months to see a PC version. And before that, the road trippers of Final Fantasy XV took about 15 months to finally pull up on PC. So a surprise summer release would only be slightly earlier than previous turnarounds, and it's not impossible to imagine the developers springing a pleasant "gotcha" on players (series producer Naoki Yoshida is something of a showman).

But it's worth noting that, alongside the presence of the medievalist Final Fantasy XVI, there is also a listing in the Nvidia control panel for a demo of the game, as cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer noticed. That suggests the possibility that, in reality, we'll first be getting a trial to see how it looks and feels on a wide spread of user PCs.

Anyway, we'll probably learn more when Gamescom kicks off later this month. I played some Final Fantasy XVI when it came out for PlayStation, and I found it a little dry. The voice acting, full of regional accents, is swell. But a lot of the dialogue and scenes felt like Game of Thrones fan fiction through a crystal-dusted JRPG lens. Then again, I'm one of the Final Fantasy nerds who prefers it when they go spacey. That's right. Alongside Katharine (RPS in peace) I have already correctly identified the best Final Fantasy games.