Final Fantasy 16 has fans suffering quite the grueling wait. Still, it hasn't stopped fans from celebrating the game's existence in their own unique ways.
While the project was only announced last year, big tidbits regarding its development have been few and far between. Square Enix has provided a reason for the drought, saying Final Fantasy 16 updates are scarce because the team doesn't want to cause any confusing speculation, but the silence is disappointing to many fans. However, that hasn't stopped one fan from taking inspiration from what little has been shown.
One fan going by the tag "_rinkuu_" decided to do a cosplay of Final Fantasy 16's protagonist, Clive Rosfield, and then post the result of their efforts on Reddit. Square Enix has only aired one Final Fantasy 16 trailer thus far, but even with only that small amount of information to go off, _rinkuu_'s cosplay hit the mark. They pulled this off thanks in part to not only their costume but the cinematography of Instagram-user, "liliumpictures." Both work together to bring the cosplay to life by capturing the feel of Final Fantasy 16's setting.
Rinkuu and liliumpictures took two shots for the cosplay, each displaying a different tone. The first shows Clive standing battle-ready and embodies the dark and nitty-gritty setting Final Fantasy 16 has compared to its predecessors. The second photo displays the complete opposite of the first, and shows Clive relaxing in a brighter and calmer setting. Overall, the duality of _rinkuu's cosplay does an excellent job of embodying Final Fantasy 16's essence.
It'll be interesting to see what fans do when Final Fantasy 16 actually releases. If they can already make cosplays as interesting as rinkuu's using the small amount of info currently available for the game, then they should be able to create downright indistinguishable works when it officially comes out, ones like some of the recent Final Fantasy 9 cosplays. In the meantime, Square Enix promised a big Final Fantasy 16 update for some time this year, so hopefully, that comes around soon.
At first, Square planned to provide the update during the Tokyo Game Show happening at the end of September, but Final Fantasy 16's development seems to be coming along slowly, so it may miss the event. Here's hoping this doesn't happen, but if it does, a PlayStation State of Play event in October focusing on the game would be the next likely step. Since Final Fantasy 16 will be a PlayStation 5 exclusive for a year, a State of Play event should be one Square Enix would consider using.
Final Fantasy 16 is in development for PS5.
Source: Reddit/_rinkuu