Square Enix’s ambitious 2023 action RPG has finally landed on PlayStation Plus Extra, giving PS5 subscribers the perfect excuse to dive into one of the most visually stunning and divisive games of recent years.
If your gaming backlog has been feeling a little light lately, that problem is about to get a lot worse — in the best possible way.
Final Fantasy XVI Joins the PS Plus Game Catalog
As part of the June 2026 PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium lineup announced last week, Final Fantasy XVI is now available to download at no additional cost for eligible subscribers. It marks the first time a mainline Final Fantasy title has appeared on Sony’s all-you-can-play service in years, and it is a genuinely big deal for anyone who has been sitting on the fence about trying it.
Whether you are a longtime fan of the franchise finally getting around to this one, or a complete newcomer looking for an epic PS5 showcase, now is as good a time as any to jump in — especially with Final Fantasy Revelation on the horizon generating fresh buzz around the series.
What Kind of Game Is Final Fantasy XVI?
If you went into Final Fantasy XVI expecting the series’ traditional blend of turn-based and real-time combat, you probably came out of it with some strong opinions. The game makes no apologies for its full pivot to action — fast, flashy, and built around spectacular Eikon battles that push the PS5 hardware in ways few games have managed.
That shift divided fans at launch. Some felt it strayed too far from the franchise’s roots. Others — and this writer is firmly in that camp — saw it as a bold and necessary evolution for a series that had been gradually moving in this direction for years. Either way, the discourse around Final Fantasy XVI has always been more interesting than a simple thumbs up or down, and with a new wave of players about to experience it for the first time, that conversation is about to get a fresh injection of life.
The game also has a noticeably darker tone than most entries in the series — closer to Game of Thrones than to the more whimsical adventures of Final Fantasy’s past. It is mature, cinematic, and takes its story seriously, for better or worse depending on your tastes.
How Long Will It Take to Finish?
If you are someone who measures the value of a game in hours, Final Fantasy XVI delivers. According to HowLongToBeat, which aggregates completion times from players across a range of playstyles, here is what you can expect:
- Main story only: approximately 38 hours
- Main story plus side content: just under 60 hours
- Full completion: around 82 hours
To put that in perspective, HowLongToBeat notes that playing 90 minutes a day while tackling some side content would take you roughly six weeks to reach the credits. That is serious value for a game that costs you nothing beyond your existing PS Plus subscription.
What the Critics Said
When Final Fantasy XVI launched in June 2023, it earned a strong reception from reviewers despite the fan debate around its combat direction. Our own review called it “truly an epic adventure” with a fantastical story, over-the-top character performances, a sublime soundtrack, and some of the most spectacular boss battles ever put to screen — concluding that it was one of 2023’s most brilliantly extravagant adventures and a serious Game of the Year contender.
Three years on, that assessment still holds up. The spectacle has not dimmed, the story hits just as hard, and the Eikon set pieces remain genuinely jaw-dropping.
Final Fantasy XVI is available now on PlayStation Plus Extra for PS5. If you have not already added it to your library, there has never been a better time.
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