Final Fantasy XVI New Game Plus: Final Fantasy Mode explained

At the start of Final Fantasy XVI, you are given two options on how you want to begin your journey. You can either play your first playthrough in Action Focused mode or Story Focused mode. Just like every other video game that offers New Game Plus, you are going to need to beat Final Fantasy XVI once on either of these game modes before you unlock what the game refers to as “Final Fantasy Mode.”

After you have conquered your first playthrough, New Game Plus will be unlocked. Appropriately titled “Final Fantasy Mode,” this will surely test all of the skills that you have learned during your first playthrough and take you one heck of a journey.

What makes Final Fantasy Mode so hard in Final Fantasy XVI?

Once you have beaten the campaign for the first time, head over to the main menu and you will see this option available as part of New Game Plus. When you get started, the campaign is going to be a whole lot different than it was for your first playthrough.

The good news about Final Fantasy Mode is that the level cap increases to 100. With the increased level cap, you will also have all your gear, abilities, and current level transfers over with you as well. This means you aren’t truly starting from scratch, and you will still be able to level up and enjoy Final Fantasy XVI all over again.

On the flip side, since you will be stronger during New Game Plus, so will the enemies. Enemies will be a lot tougher to defeat in New Game Plus. The positioning of enemies and even the types of enemies that you encounter in specific areas are different as well.

Customization will also be changing for the better in New Game Plus. There is a very good chance that you are going to have an overabundance of items that you obtained during your first playthrough. Instead of continuing to hoard the items in your inventory, you can synthesize these items at the Blacksmith. Synthesizing your items allows you to condense them all down into one item, but with increased attributes.

Finally, with how hard Final Fantasy mode is going to be, there has to be a way for players to get even stronger than they were during their first playthrough. Luckily, there will be. During your first playthrough of Final Fantasy XVI, you will be able to upgrade all your weapons to a max of three degrees. In New Game Plus’s Final Fantasy mode, you will be able to upgrade your weapons to an even higher max of six degrees. This will allow you to get stronger as the enemies do as well.

If all of this sounds interesting to you, you are going to have to own a PlayStation 5 and beat Final Fantasy XVI at least one time. Final Fantasy XVI will officially be released on June 22, 2023, and will be a PlayStation 5 exclusive.