Final Fantasy XVI realistically depicts sexual desire
Final Fantasy XVI has great potential to open new horizons for the legendary fantasy franchise, but one aspect is certainly interesting. When we talk about the image of sexual attraction, the games as a whole are still behind other forms of narrative media. In addition to visual novels, which are a completely different discourse, games, as a rule, limit this topic by a fan service or break it into mechanics in which you should accumulate attachment points to a specific character in order to get closer to it as a reward. Of course, not all games do this, but it is usually dominant trends.
Sexual attraction is usually not woven into the narrative realistic during interactions that are not directly related to the topic. This happens, but quite rarely, and even less often in Japanese games, probably, partly due to the country’s cultural contempt for public manifestations of attachment.
Final Fantasy XVI definitely breaks this template. In the game you will see moments in which people interact with each other as lovers, who are clearly sexually attracted to each other, which adds another layer to something extremely important for the narrative-interpersonal relations.
The producer Naoki Yoshida was asked about this in the context of creating the game Final Fantasy, which will definitely become more mature in its tone compared to what we saw before, and his answer was simple, but instructive.
As for those for adults, violence and sexual content, we did not really try to add them to the game. This was not our intention from the very beginning. It was rather that we had a story that we wanted to tell, and these things seemed to fit into history.
It may seem simple, but it is very important. Quite often, those few images of the sexual interaction that we see in the game are very self-sufficient and seem to be something added to history in order to reassure the player or artificially make it more mature.
On the other hand, in Final Fantasy XVI, these scenes serve as a plot and are organically woven into it with a realistic and integral way. This is not entirely unique in the game industry, but it is a rarity, especially well done.