Nvidia Adds Final Fantasy XVI Driver Profile, Sparking PC Release Speculation

Hold onto your chocobos, PC gamers—there’s a glimmer of hope for Final Fantasy XVI making its way to our beloved platform. The tech wizards over at Nvidia just updated their graphics drivers, and eagle-eyed fans have noticed something interesting: a brand-new profile for Final Fantasy XVI has popped up in their control panel tool.

Now, Final Fantasy XVI hasn’t been officially announced for PC yet, and Square Enix has been pretty tight-lipped about a release date. But this driver update sure looks like Nvidia is getting ready for something. With Gamescom just around the corner and Square Enix set to attend, we might finally get some answers soon.

The clue first surfaced thanks to a Reddit user who tracks Nvidia’s updates. They pointed out that the latest driver update includes game-ready profiles for both Final Fantasy XVI and Once Human, even though these weren’t mentioned in the official release notes. If you dive into the control panel’s 3D settings after updating, you’ll find the JRPG listed there.

Nvidia often works closely with game developers to ensure their drivers are ready for big releases, so the appearance of this profile suggests that something is definitely brewing. Some fans, particularly those on forums like ResetEra, are even hoping for a surprise "shadow drop" of the game at Gamescom.

To put this in context, the PS5 version of Final Fantasy XVI launched 13 months ago. Looking at past releases, Final Fantasy VII Remake took about 1 year and 8 months to make its way to PC, and Final Fantasy XV took around 15 months. So, if Final Fantasy XVI were to drop this summer, it wouldn’t be too far off from the timelines of previous titles. And let’s not forget, series producer Naoki Yoshida loves a good surprise reveal.

However, there’s also a chance that this Nvidia profile is for a demo rather than the full game, as noticed by our friends over at PC Gamer. If that’s the case, we might be getting a trial version first to see how the game runs on a variety of PC setups.

In any case, we’ll likely find out more once Gamescom kicks off later this month. As for the game itself, I gave Final Fantasy XVI a whirl when it came out on PlayStation. The voice acting, with its regional accents, is solid, but I found some of the dialogue and scenes to be a bit dry—like Game of Thrones fan fiction with a JRPG twist. But hey, that’s just my take. I’m more of a fan of the "spacey" Final Fantasy games anyway.

So, whether you’re excited for a potential PC release or just curious to see how this unfolds, keep an eye out for updates as we get closer to Gamescom. And who knows? Maybe we’ll all be adventuring in Valisthea on our PCs sooner than we think.