NVIDIA's Game Ready Driver has Final Fantasy 16 profiles, suggests PC release is coming soon

Square Enix has confirmed that its latest RPG epic, Final Fantasy 16, was coming to PC; however, the development team was focused squarely (heh) on the PlayStation 5 launch ahead of the game's June 2023 release. As for a specific release date or window, PC fans have had to play 'wait-and-see' until the studio and producer Yoshi-P felt the PC version was ready to unleash.

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Final Fantasy XVI is coming to PC, and sooner than expected, image credit: Square Enix.

The release could be right around the corner, thanks to some old-fashioned internet sleuthing. Fans on Reddit have found multiple mentions of the game in NVIDIA's latest Game Ready 560.81 WHQL driver for GeForce RTX graphics card owners.

And that's multiple because not only is "ffxvi.exe" listed under a game profile for Final Fantasy XVI, but also "ffxvi_demo.exe" - indicating that Square Enix is planning on releasing a playable slice of the RPG for all PC gamers to try out.

Profiles for games don't usually show up in NVIDIA drivers months before a game is released, leading many to believe that Square Enix is planning on surprise announcing and releasing Final Fantasy 16 for PC at Gamescom 2024. GameReady profiles are finalized for the launch of new games or recent releases, with NVIDIA's latest driver also including a profile for Once Human.

To add a little bit of extra fuel to this theory, producer and franchise representative Yoshi-P is headed to Gamescom. He could be the one to announce the release and demo availability live on stage as part of the Opening Night Live ceremony scheduled to take place on August 20.

At this stage, it's unknown if Square Enix will be making any changes to the game's PC version or if it will support NVIDIA's advanced rendering tools like DLSS, Reflex, and Frame Generation. We'd love to see the game's visuals taken up a notch with real-time ray tracing incorporating RTXGI.