Godzilla, Evangelion, Pro Wrestling, And More: The Inspiration Behind Final Fantasy 16’s Eikon Combat

Final Fantasy 16’s Eikon Combat

Final Fantasy XVI, the next mainline entry in the long-running series, will launch for PlayStation 5 this summer. I had the chance to play the game for about two hours recently. For the most part, I took control of Clive and led him into battle in a castle dungeon alongside my ally Cidolfus Telamon (always a Cid, right?). Late in my preview, however, I faced off against Garuda, another Eikon, while in control of Ifrit.

According to Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida, Clive has very little influence over Ifrit at this point in the game, which is around the five-hour mark. Just a select few in Final Fantasy XV’s world are Dominants, with the ability to channel Eikon energy and even take on their form. The Cidolfus can transform into the Ramuh Eikon. On the other hand, Clive is not a Dominant (but his younger brother, Joshua, is).
I tried to find out from the team what happened in the story to set up this exciting climax, but they were tight-lipped. Attacking Garuda, Ifrit has a limited arsenal and sluggishly moves around the vast field. Yoshida claims that the fight demonstrates Clive’s lack of experience with Ifrit’s power. Once I had vanquished Garuda, I became so enraged that it took Cidolfus’s transformation into Ramuh to stop me.

In an interview for Final Fantasy XVI, Yoshida, director Hiroshi Takai, and combat director Ryota Suzuki were asked about the game’s Eikon vs. Eikon battle system. Yoshida claims that every Eikon battle will be tailored to the specifics of the conflict at hand. Consequently, Creative Business Unit III drew inspiration from a wide range of sources when designing the game’s many battles.
Yoshida explains that the game’s “Eikon vs. Eikon battle that you got to play today, the Ifrit vs. Garuda,” occurs very early on. “And basically, each of these battles that we have, have themes, and the theme for this one happened to be that we wanted to create something that felt like a giant pro wrestling match, something that had a lot of weight to it,” he continued. Although, as you may have noticed from the previews and videos we showed you today, each battle in Eikon is its own special beast. One of these is in charge of the Phoenix and acts more like a third-person shooter. Also, there’s the titanic conflict, which features some seriously…high-velocity action. And so, it’s safe to say that every one of these is unique.

Yoshida has told me that the Ifrit vs. Garuda demo I used for the preview was based on an anime the team saw when they were kids.
For that particular battle, “we took inspiration from things like Evangelion, other things like Godzilla or Ultraman,” he explains. “But then again, we didn’t base the Titan battle on any of those. Since the conflict is so different, we looked in other places for ideas. To that end, we’ve put in a lot of time, money, and effort into making each battle feel special and unique so that players can appreciate that when they play them.

Then you’re like, “Wow, that was kind of a crazy thing to do,” and we never use it again in the game. In fact, that’s exactly what we set out to do because we enjoy a good challenge, both for ourselves and our players.