Final Fantasy XVI finally arrives on Windows PCs today, over a year after its launch on the PlayStation 5. That means expanded access for a game that sold below Square Enix’s expectations on console. But it also means the first opportunity for modders to add their own content to the game.
For game producer Naoki Yoshida, though, that new opportunity comes along with a plea for the user community to behave themselves when modifying the game. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Yoshida felt the need to step in when director Hiroshi Takai was asked about what “goofy mods” he would like to see in the game.
“If we said, ‘It’d be great if someone made xyz,’ it might come across as a request, so I’ll avoid mentioning any specifics here!” Yoshida told PC Gamer. “The only thing I will say is that we definitely don’t want to say anything offensive or inappropriate, so please don’t make or install anything like that.”
It’s a plea that’s likely to fall on deaf ears, if history is any guide. A quick perusal of the Nexus Mods page for the Final Fantasy VII Remake turns up everything from the relatively tame “sexy dress Aerith” and “Regular Dress Cloud” mods to the much less appropriate “Tifa 4K Hi-Poly Nude Mod” (which is blocked by Nexus Mods’ filters unless you actively enable adult content). A little Googling can easily find forums with multipage threads of explicitly adult-oriented mods for the game as well.
Get used to it
This isn’t exactly a new type of concern for Japanese game developers. In 2015, Dead or Alive 5 producer Yosuke Hayashi asked “PC users to play our game in good moral and manner” (a bit ironic for a series so focused on scantily clad, buxom female competitors). Last year, Capcom went even further by likening PC game modding to “cheating,” citing the “reputational damage caused by malicious mods” that can be “offensive to public order and morals.”
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