Final Fantasy 16 Devs Explain The Inspiration Behind Eikons

Final Fantasy 16 has proven to be a staggering success for the prominent IP and Square Enix. It made some bold yet triumphant choices, such as adding Eikons that characters can transform into for a limited time. The devs Naoki Yoshida and Hiroshi Taka recently appeared in an interview with GameSpot to shed light on how these Eikons were made and the inspirations behind them.

The concept of Eikons was heavily integrated from the get-go, but the concept originated from something quite silly and amusing. The history of Eikons takes us back to the Tokyo Games Show 2014 when the idea initially sprouted in Yoshi-P’s mind. Around 2:05 in the video, Naoki Yoshida talks about how he experienced a series of events while visiting the Tokyo Game Show in 2014 that inspired him to come up with Eikons. 

The venue was choke-full of crowds, making it quite a hassle for Yoshida to return to his Square Enix booth. The dev saw a giant Chocobo and a Moogle hanging at the top of a booth and had a deep epiphany about Eikons.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could transform into Ifrit right now? Everyone would run away, and I’d be back at the booth in a single stride,” thought Naoki Yoshida while viewing the hanging giant Chocobo and Moogle.

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Although the dev ensures to clarify that he did not want to set people on fire but rather scare them away to have all the venue for himself. It is when Yoshida thought that it would be cool to have people turn into summons while still retaining possession of their own will. The scale of battle would also grow to a whole new scale by having Eikons; Final Fantasy 16 perfectly reflected the ideas of Yoshida.

Naoki Yoshida was so excited about Eikons that he compelled the devs to add a sequence at the start of the game, which paid off quite well. Final Fantasy 16 also focused on Iftrit since Yoshida felt like the summon proved to be quite underwhelming in other Final Fantasy entries; players would get Ifrit first and then get stronger summons after progression later on.

Final Fantasy was released on June 22, 2023, as a PlayStation 5 exclusive but may also release on PC in the future.

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