Final Fantasy fans are playing the new game early – find out how

FINAL Fantasy 16 isn’t set to be released for another week yet, but some fans have managed to get their hands on the game early.

There have been multiple reports of players getting their copies of the PS5 game early in the mail, or finding the game for sale at local retailers. 

Gamers on Reddit, Twitter, and other online forums have been posting pictures of the game’s case, and screenshots from the game’s tutorial.

Games often get into the hands of players before their release date, due to shipping errors or stores not knowing when they’re supposed to sell the game. 

It sometimes has dire effects though, as spoilers tend to spread across the internet before most people can play the game. 

Pokémon games in particular tend to leak out to players weeks or even up to a month before they’re officially released, with new creature designs getting spread across social media. 

Other Nintendo games are hot targets for leakers and spoilers too, as seen with the recently released The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. 

The new Zelda game had details leaked months ahead of launch when somebody showed off over 200 pages of images from the game’s artbook. 

Nintendo subsequently got lawyers involved, and started the legal process to discover the identity of the Zelda leaker. 

Square Enix, the developer and publisher of Final Fantasy 16, is less likely to go after players who received the game early, as it tends to be fairly lax with leakers. 

Still, for fans trying to go into the game blind, dodging spoilers on Twitter and other social media is going to be difficult, especially if Twitter algorithms pick up on somebody being interested in the game. 

Twitter often shows trending tweets from liked topics in its algorithmic ‘For You’ feed, and users have complained that it often leads to spoilers for games they haven’t played yet. 

Those wanting to get a little taste of Final Fantasy 16 before it launches on June 22 can check out the FF16 demo, which lets you play the first few hours of the game.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.