Being like almost a year before launching you wouldn't expect Square Enix choosing WAY TOO EARLY to share some expectations for the game, but assurance that we are actually bound for an Mid-June to Mid-September 2023 launch window, that we ACTUALLY have news.
Grinding the gaming news again, Square Enix really wanted to make some point clear on what to wait for Final Fantasy XVI via producer Naoki Yoshida for the Playstation blog.
A big contrast with Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy XVI's Valisthea will NOT be an open world, BUT, it will have a big areas to explore to make up for the smaller map in comparison of FFXV's Eos.
My take on this is the same situation with Kingdom Hearts and Square Enix again having problems dominating a beast that this new current gaming generation has proven to be and probably it was a safe bet having an hybrid of structured map but big in size.
The protagonist Clive will be the only playable player and all allies will be controlled via AI, a classic formula of Final Fantasy games and I still don't get why people expected to control everybody.
Finally, Total was revealed as a wolf companion for Clive.
The storyline will be the most bloody and dramatic, a first crossing of Teen and Mature for any Final Fantasy games not counting the "revealing" vibes of Final Fantasy X/X-2, edginess that Final Fantasy VII brought in 1997 and for some people needs to surpass the mature story of Type-0.
Finally, summoned monsters will be called Eikons, including Titan, Garuda, Bahamut, Odin & Ramu and each of them will have their own attacking system attached to their respective character's summoners.