Square Enix has released a trailer for Final Fantasy 16, and the stunning new video, titled "Ambition," gives us a better look at the main party members and the various kingdoms featured in the game. It's a nice lore dump filled with the usual Final Fantasy nonsense, and I'm very pleased with it.

As the narrator gravely states, the land of Valistia is dying. The Crystal, an old staple of the series, is losing its power and the world is being consumed by darkness. The kingdoms of Valistia seem to be competing for the power of the Mother Crystal. There is the traditional Grand Duchy of Rosalia, the glittering Holy Empire of Sambryk, the Republic of Dalmatia of the Dunes, the burning Iron Kingdom, and the dark Kingdom of Waroed.

The trailer details the dominants of these kingdoms (humans with the power of Eikon, this game's version of the summoner). Some kingdoms worship the dominants, while others live in fear of them. There are also glimpses of classic Final Fantasy summoners, such as a man with the power of a Titan, a sign of Ramu, the god of thunder, and a woman who spews icicles like Shiva.

While the trailer focuses on world-building, we also get a brief peek at combat. We see a battle between Clive and Benedicta, Garuda's chosen dominatrix. She swings in the air and unleashes wind magic with her wings. In one scene, the arm of Hugo, the supposed dominatrix of Titan, becomes huge and rock-like, unleashing an uppercut. The arms of Hugo, who is believed to be the dominant of Titan, become huge and rock-like, and he unleashes an uppercut.

This is good news on the development front, since late last year director Naoki Yoshida announced that the team was six months behind schedule. In a statement he posted on the game's Twitter page, he announced, "The team has turned the corner and is entering the home stretch and is now focusing all of its efforts on debugging, tweaking, polishing, and optimizing."

Sadly, it appears that PC players will have to wait a bit longer than the current Summer 2023 release schedule. Despite being originally announced for the PC (and then quickly stopped), the game will be entirely dedicated to the PS5 for the first six months of the game's life. Hopefully we won't have to wait as long as we did for the Final Fantasy 7 remake.