Final Fantasy XVI is almost unplayable on PS5 after a recent system update

Just as Final Fantasy XVI arrives on PC, the original PlayStation 5 version is facing some outrageous technical issues after the console’s most recent system update. Player reports include everything from a few graphic hiccups to the uglier crashes.

Across social media, players shared clips and screenshots of Final Fantasy XVI’s recent technical obstacles. While the game saw stability updates in the past, the most recent patch for Sony’s console firmware marks a clear point where the latest issues began. There’s no fix just yet, but Square Enix is aware of player reports.

Final Fantasy XVI on PC goes live just in time to dodge PS5 performance woes

The PS5 24.06-10.00.00 system update went live on September 12, sending a wave of players to Reddit, Twitter, and all the usual places with their complaints. Some of them don’t seem too bad but play a little longer, and you may run into something like whatever’s going on in this Redditor’s clip.

Over the weekend, players posted snippets of bizarre bugs and glitches, like huge blobs of broken pixels submerging the world of Valisthea or NPCs glowing neon pink. This may all seem funny at first, but they have made Final Fantasy XVI completely unplayable on the console, with many reports of unexpected game crashes in save files with dozens of hours into them. After several days of silence, the official Final Fantasy XVI accounts on Twitter/X acknowledged the user reports, noting Square Enix is aware of the issues.

Square Enix says it’s working closely with Sony to fix these issues

“Following the recent release of the PlayStation 5 system update, there have been reports of the game crashing and graphical issues,” the company said on Twitter/X. More importantly, it goes on to note Square Enix is working with Sony to investigate the cause.

From the statement, it sounds like signs point to Sony pushing its latest update through and not exclusively an error caused by an oops over on the development team.

This statement officially revealed to fans that these issues did most likely happen because Sony pushed for their newest PS5 update, and it affected Final Fantasy XVI in a way that caught Square Enix unprepared for the change. The PS5 update primarily introduced new features (and enhanced many others), so it’s a little surprising the patch impacted Square’s RPG to this degree.

Unfortunately, Square Enix didn’t give a specific date for when we can expect a fix for these issues, so Final Fantasy XVI players may have to grit their teeth and deal with its graphical errors and annoying game crashes for a while.