Final Fantasy XVI has officially gone gold

by Josh Tolentino on 01 April, 2023

After a long journey, Final Fantasy XVI is complete. Square Enix announced via a tweet on March 31, 2023, that the latest mainline title in the Final Fantasy series has "gone gold", and is effectively ready to distribute to retailers worldwide.

Check out the tweet below.

Final Fantasy XVI has gone gold.

From the entire team, including Torgal, we hope you're looking forward to #FF16's launch on June 22nd pic.twitter.com/Vrtd3cMNW5
— FINAL FANTASY XVI (@finalfantasyxvi) March 31, 2023

The announcement includes a photo of members of the development team holding plush replicas of Torgal, Clive's dog. There are, in fact, two kinds of Torgal plushies: One of puppy Torgal and one of adult Torgal, recognizing the different time periods the game takes place in. The plushes were also present at the Final Fantasy XVI panel at PAX 2023.

If you're not familiar with the term, "gone gold" is a euphemism from game and software development, referring to the days when once a project's development was complete and judged as ready to ship, the first copies of a game were shipped out on one or more "master" copies for duplication. Sometimes these masters were burned onto special gold-colored media and displayed as symbols of completed projects.

Final Fantasy XVI is set for release on June 22, 2023 on the PS5.