Square Enix’sFinal Fantasy 16has garnered an awful lot of attention since the game’s initial announcement, and the series' considerable community seems to be eager to see what it’s all about. The readers of Famitsu, the popular Japanese gaming magazine, have cast their votes on what the most exciting upcoming release of 2022 might be, and the nextFinal Fantasy won.
This news comes as part of Famitsu’s established “most wanted” games chart, where the community votes on what they’re most excited to play. Though the competition was fierce, what withBayonetta 3andGran Turismo 7in the equation,Final Fantasy 16ended up winning with 625 votes in total.
RELATED:Final Fantasy 16 Seemingly Missing From Square Enix’s 2022 Lineup
It’s almost hard to believe that it’s been a whopping 6 years sinceFinal Fantasy 15came out, and the franchise’s loyal community seems to be quite significant indeed. There’s the looming promise of the upcomingSpring 2022 reveal forFinal Fantasy 16, too, which is sure to have helped the hype engines along to some extent. On a similar note, it’s interesting that the game managed to beat a number of other huge releases that are slated for 2022.
Namely, FromSoftware’s ownElden Ringonly got to 12th place, while the next iteration of the cult classicGran Turismoseries nested at 9th place.Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2got to 5th place, withSplatoon 3andBayonetta 3holding third and second place, respectively. This means that even thoughFinal Fantasy 16is strangely absent fromSquare Enix’s 2022 launch schedule, it still has enough organic pull to beat virtually all of its competitors, no matter the genre.
Even thoughFinal Fantasy 16’s main narrative was wrapped upin October 2021, details on what the game is about are still relatively scarce. This may be a good sign for the game’s story, and a solid way for Square Enix to keep its audience intrigued by the game’s premise.
It goes without saying that this is an incredibly impressive showing for Square Enix’s flagship franchise, but it’s also worth remembering that these results are fairly localized. Famitsu is an Asian-oriented magazine, after all, and these results reflect its specific community’s tastes. The fact thatFinal Fantasy 16is a dedicated fantasy game, seemingly without any science-fiction elements, may also be helping its popularity along.
