What do you think will be the better/bigger RPG game of 2023, FFXVI or Starfield?

Which will be the bigger RPG of 2023?

  • Final Fantasy XVI will sell more but Starfield will review better

  • Starfield will sell more but Final Fantasy XVI will review better

  • Starfield will review better and sell better

  • Final Fantasy XVI will review better and sell better


Results are only viewable after voting.
Will FF16 actually be an RPG? Like, have branching quests, interactive dialogues, skill checks, player agency?

Or will it be like FF15 which was a semi-open world action game? (I enjoyed it, but there was nothing RPGish about it)
 
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Again, this is you being selective, not I. I simply compared the last games released by both publishers. You're the one who puts up arbitrary restrictions on what can and cannot be compared. That is being selective.

I didn't put up arbitrary restrictions, you added arbitrary rules to compare misaligned game releases. You may as well compare Elder Scroll Arena sales to FFX at that rate with how ridiculous that is. At least compare games that are somewhat close to each other.

Again, this is you being selective, not I. I simply compared the last games released by both publishers. You're the one who puts up arbitrary restrictions on what can and cannot be compared. That is being selective.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to argue here, but it appears that you're trying to argue that FF14's player base is as big as it is because of the free trial? The free trial has, at best, a month - two months worth of content to do before you're required to purchase the full game and a subscription. To argue that that

I didn't. You say you don't know what I'm arguing so make up your own? The issue is incredibly simple to comprehend, ESO and FF14 do not use the same model for their games, which does impact the amount of active players in number (longevity or engagement being a different discussion). It's like comparing Counter Strike to Doom, yes they are both FPS shooters butt hey clearly aren't aiming to do the same thing. I've even given an example of how MMORPGS have competition competing in the same category, you're argument boils down to acting that all MMO's use the same model, which appeal to the same demographics, with the same goals. They aren't.

Age of Empires and Simcity are both strategy games but they aren't competing with each other. Mario Kart and Forza are both racing games but they clearly aren't in the same category, Forza's competition would be Gran turismo. Mario Karts would be that Crash Team Racing remake.

There would have been attempts to monetize old ES games if there was a large interest in older titles. Yet Bethesda/Zenimax have made almost no attempt at making the games more easily available.

Now it's clear you have no idea what you are talking about, as the games have been more accessible over the years.

It's apparent that there is far more interest in older Final Fantasy games than there is in older Elder Scrolls games.

You could reasonably argue that they are less ambitious and smaller in scope, but turn based story driven RPGs simply age a lot better than games like ES do.

it's not apparent, and the bottom is an opinion you're trying to pass off as objective.

I don't disagree with any of that. Bethesda games do tend to be more popular and outsell FF by a fairly wide margin. However, they do actually have to make a good game in order for that to happen and that clearly wasn't the case with Fallout 76. Your statement that a Final Fantasy game hasn't outsold a Bethesda game is, with currently available sales numbers, simply inaccurate.

It's not inaccurate. Even F76sold more than the aligned FF game that came out around the same time. but F76 was a rushed game with its own controversies and an online spin-off, so it's not an indication of how Starfield will be at all, which is what you're trying to say in not so many words.
 
My vote would be Diablo IV if it was for the RPG game of 2023.

Regarding Starfield and FFXVI as the subject of this thread.

I believe Starfield will have fewer sales due to XboxGamePass and PCGamePass.
My vote would be FFXVI
 
Look at the developer, not the franchise.

Creative Business Unit III has released more critically acclaimed games in the last 10 years than Bethesda Game Studios has.
Bethesda Game Studios hasn't put out a must buy game since Skyrim in 2011. Starfield will sell better because it's on PC, but unless they do some serious work to that combat AI, it's going to be another letdown critically.
 
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Will FF16 actually be an RPG? Like, have branching quests, interactive dialogues, skill checks, player agency?

Or will it be like FF15 which was a semi-open world action game? (I enjoyed it, but there was nothing RPGish about it)

It's probably going to be in line with most recent FF games and JRPG's in general, so more like FF15. Except hopefully with a better combat system, better magic system, better characters, better side quest and a proper well told and complete story that doesn't need a full length CG movie, a bunch of anime shorts and 2 years worth of DLC and updates to feel somewhat complete.
 
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It's probably going to be in line with most recent FF games and JRPG's in general, so more like FF15. Except hopefully with a better combat system, better magic system, better characters, better side quest and a proper well told and complete story that doesn't need a full length CG movie, a bunch of anime shorts and 2 years worth of DLC and updates to feel somewhat complete.
Hopefully it is better than FF15.

But I gotta wonder, why do no JP devs ever create RPG with actual player agency.
 
FFX was as linear as FFXIII, yet people absolutely love 10 and hate 13.
Then we finally get an open-world in FFXV and people hate it. Fucking hysterical.
Now the open-world is ditched again in 16, and I truly cannot imagine how people will react to this at release.

Anyway, RPGs they are indeed not, but I'd say the same about Dragon Quest XI, although everybody claims it's an RPG.
It's more of a cinematic experience than anything else. DQ11/modern Final Fantasy games are to RPGs what Uncharted and TLOU are to shooters.
All of them barely fit the genre and any gameplay seems to be begrudgingly added to push forward the linear as fuck storylines.
 
FFX was as linear as FFXIII, yet people absolutely love 10 and hate 13.
One of the top criticisms of FFX was the lack of a traditional world map. (or linearity as you call it)
FF fans dislike FFXIII for other reasons.
Its 'linearity' is just the cherry on top.
 
But I gotta wonder, why do no JP devs ever create RPG with actual player agency.
Well, we do get the occasional Dark Souls/Elden Ring and Xenoblade Chronicles X where we at least get to build our own character, which also have some minimal amount of choices though narrative isn't their focus.
 
I mean one is JRPG and the other is WRPG.
FF16 is being made by Yoshi P and therefore a certified banger.
Starfield is made by modern day bethesda.
Personally? I imagine that I will enjoy ff16 more but I do plan on playing both games on release. Both will probably be fun and scratch different desires.
 
Very silly and uncesseary comparison. You are comparing apples to oranges. A JRPG versus a western RPG that's also in FPS. Super dumb.

Both are massive games in their own right and deserve their spotlight and both will do well commercially.
 
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Well, we do get the occasional Dark Souls/Elden Ring and Xenoblade Chronicles X where we at least get to build our own character, which also have some minimal amount of choices though narrative isn't their focus.
I wonder if we will ever see an RPG made in Japan that goes all New Vegas on player agency.
 
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FFX was as linear as FFXIII, yet people absolutely love 10 and hate 13.
Then we finally get an open-world in FFXV and people hate it. Fucking hysterical.
Now the open-world is ditched again in 16, and I truly cannot imagine how people will react to this at release.

Because liking or disliking a game comes down to more than just "is it open world or is it linear".

FFX and XIII are the perfect example. As you said, they are both very linear but one gets a lot of love and the other a lot of hate.
But FFX had a story and characters that people liked more, it had a fun combat system from the beginning while XIII takes like 10-15 hours to finally take off the insane training wheels (then it gets good), FFX does a much better job with pacing and hiding the linearity by actually having towns, and NPCs, and shops, and side activities like Blitzball, and some occasional puzzle segments, etc while 80% of FFXIII is little more than walking in a straight line from one combat encounter to the next, etc.

XV was the same, it wasn't bad because it was open world. It was bad because it was a bland open world, with very limited traversal options (at launch), filled with boring fetch quests, with a poorly told plot that felt disjointed and half finished, a very shallow combat system and some janky boss battles that were all style over substance.
 
People have been waiting for like 10 years for starfield even if its a pile of dogshit it will sell more than ff16 despite being on gamepass.
 
I didn't put up arbitrary restrictions, you added arbitrary rules to compare misaligned game releases. You may as well compare Elder Scroll Arena sales to FFX at that rate with how ridiculous that is. At least compare games that are somewhat close to each other.
You're simply projecting now. Fallout 76 is the latest game released by Bethesda, it came out in 2018. FFXV came out in 2016 and FFVII:Remake came out in 2020. There is, at best a 2 year difference in release date between titles. You made a broad statement and when you get called out on it, you put up arbitrary restrictions afterwards. Give me ONE good reason, just ONE, why we can't compare game releases with just two years between them and which game specifically it disadvantages and why. I'm not comparing Elder Scrolls Arena to FFX because you put a timeframe in your original claim and Arena falls out of that.
I didn't. You say you don't know what I'm arguing so make up your own? The issue is incredibly simple to comprehend, ESO and FF14 do not use the same model for their games, which does impact the amount of active players in number (longevity or engagement being a different discussion). It's like comparing Counter Strike to Doom, yes they are both FPS shooters butt hey clearly aren't aiming to do the same thing. I've even given an example of how MMORPGS have competition competing in the same category, you're argument boils down to acting that all MMO's use the same model, which appeal to the same demographics, with the same goals. They aren't.

Age of Empires and Simcity are both strategy games but they aren't competing with each other. Mario Kart and Forza are both racing games but they clearly aren't in the same category, Forza's competition would be Gran turismo. Mario Karts would be that Crash Team Racing remake.
It's not simple to comprehend because you're using incorrect terminology, and you refuse to elaborate on what it actually is you're referring to. "Same model" What model are you talking about? Are you talking about business model? I've already addressed that aspect of it. Are you saying we can't compare them because they have different gameplay? Because that would be an incredibly weak argument. Both are story driven MMORPGs with a large emphasis on solo content. In fact, these games have far more in common with each other than the singleplayer games do, so if your argument is that we can't compare them because they differ in gameplay, then logically the same applies to the single player games.

The fact is that both are story driven MMORPG's and one of them is much more popular than the other. That's all there is to it.
Now it's clear you have no idea what you are talking about, as the games have been more accessible over the years.

it's not apparent, and the bottom is an opinion you're trying to pass off as objective.
Oh really? So I can play Oblivion on anything modern besides a PC or Xbox? Well I guess you can "stream" it to a PS4. Can I play an enhanced version of it? What about Morrowind? Also no? What about the classic Elder scrolls game like Arena and Daggerfall. Surely they must have enhanced them and at least release them on mobile or something? What, also No? Wait, They didn't even remake a single one of them?

Bethesda's attempts at making these games more easily available absolutely pales compared to Square's efforts which have ported, remade and enhanced nearly all of their titles at least once and often several times for decades now. If you have any modern gaming system, you can play Final Fantasy XII on it. or X. or IX. or VIII. or VII. You can't say the same about any old Bethesda game.
It's not inaccurate. Even F76sold more than the aligned FF game that came out around the same time. but F76 was a rushed game with its own controversies and an online spin-off, so it's not an indication of how Starfield will be at all, which is what you're trying to say in not so many words.
I'm not at all implying that Starfield will be like F76. I share your opinion that F76 was a troubled game, that Bethesda have learned from it and that Starfield will most likely be the better selling game. Something which I elaborated on a few pages back. What I have said is that your claim, which was:
You are underestimating bethesda game sales.

FF hasn't outsold a Bethesda game since the limitation of PC distribution and CD drives were resolved.
is simply incorrect with currently available sales data of past games. Unless you have sales data that shows otherwise?
 
I hope FFXVI does better, but the realist in me knows Starfield probably will. I personally will be playing FF XVI more as all I have is a PS5, and well after Fallout 4, I have no interest in Bethesda games that much anymore except Doom.
 
Final Fantasy hasn't been good since ff10.

I think FFX is somewhat overrated. Played it, liked it but it's not perfect. Characters aren't that memorable. Story is rather good.

Imo FF XII is better, though not by much. FF XIV is just superior in comparison to both.
 
Well for me FF is dead at least since FF XV. There was nothing in this game that had something to do with FF. I don't expect something else for FF XVI. But I would guess it will sell more. Starfield is new and unknown (except for gaming forums). Also it has a science fiction setting which excludes many potential buyers. A game such like Skyrim with dragons and the setting is much easier to sell than science fiction.
 
Starfield looks insane, don't get me wrong... But the problem is that the marketing looks like the one from Cyberpunk: an overhyped game from which we haven't seen that much. I hope it won't be like the ofrmer because it looks promising.
On the contrary, FF looks promising because it's developped by FFXIV team and since XV was bad, it can only be better so i'm not hyped at all but I know it can't be worse.
 
i think it will depend on the type of rpgs you like
ff16 from what it looks like will be very story focused with interesting characters , alot of skills to use , it will most likely be very dependent on leveling

starfield on the other hand from what i saw in the trailer and what todd said the game will be like skyrim and fallout 4 , mostly exploration and alot of the content will come from modders after the game releases , thats why they have 1000 planets , dont expect a good story from bethesda

so yeah if you want a good story and combat ff16 will be your choice but if you want exploration starfield will be best for you

i personally want a good story so i chose ff16
 
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Honestly Starfield will sell better based on hype but I believe FF XVI will review better.

This is because we have a track record of Bethesda games in recent years being released broken, back in the day reviewers for whatever reason overlooked this, but now... not so much.

As for FF XVI if you had any other director sure I would be doubtful, but the FF7 Remake proved they knew what there doing with live action combat and outside the terrible ending chapter which can be leveled directly at getting Mr Kingdom Hearts involved it showed some real growth from XV in how they handle characters.

However this has Yoshi P directing, he managed to create one of if not the biggest gaming come back story of a generation and knows what franchise fans are looking for in terms of story and character, this has the potential to be one of the franchises best story's, with perfected combat systems from 7R layered on top, it has real potential for greatness.

But only time will tell.
 
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How are we defining bigger? influence? impact? or just the better game?

I have a lot of faith (or is it hope) for FXVI since it's made by the F14 on line team. They can weave some great stories. I'd love to see a return to form for the franchise. But Starfield is massive, even with the game pass and loss of sales on xbox. That game will most likely have some decent legs. Starfield will either knock it out of the park, or become the poster child for meme's and head towards the Cyberpunk levels of epic failure. No in between I think for that game. It could be the next Skyrim.

I know I'm looking forward to FXVI, don't care at all about Starfield, personally.
 
I want both to be as good as possible, because I am excited for both of those games and plan on playing both.

However if I could pick which one I'd rather have do well is Final Fantasy, because I didn't like XV and in general I feel like the golden era of FF is over for me and I would love for Square to show me wrong and release a banging FF 16 that exceeds my expectations in every way possible.
I don't want an okay game. I want a great Final Fantasy.

As far as Starfield goes I think my expectations are around Fallout 4 levels. I liked Fallout 4, but it wasn't a masterpiece. Very high chance I am playing the game on PC gamepass when it launches and besides technical performance I see no reason to worry. Or bugs and glitches and delays.
 
I don't know what some people are thinking, but all indications are that gamepass does not hurt sales if the word of mouth is positive, and Fallout 3 Fallout 4 and Skyrim all have outsold FFXV. Skyrim by a wide margin of 3 to 1.
I don't see any scenario where Starfield would be outsold by FF XVI other than Starfield pulls a CP2077, which is highly unlikely.
When you say pulling a cuberpunk do you mean being a buggy mess at launch? Because this never stopped bethesda games in beta state from selling a fuckton anyway.
 
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What the hell is a Starfield?
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When you say pulling a cuberpunk do you mean being a buggy mess at launch? Because this never stopped bethesda games in beta state from selling a fuckton anyway.
I was think more of the general word of mouth and how the game's element fell far short of what the developers and publishers hyped for the game. What killed CP2077 wasn't just the bugs, (in fact I played it on PC and didn't encounter many bugs), it was that combined with all the other letdowns that turned it into a perfect storm of disappointment.
 
I was think more of the general word of mouth and how the game's element fell far short of what the developers and publishers hyped for the game. What killed CP2077 wasn't just the bugs, (in fact I played it on PC and didn't encounter many bugs), it was that combined with all the other letdowns that turned it into a perfect storm of disappointment.
Great response and i think the same.
 
Uh. One is fantasy, while the other is sci-fi, so I imagine this is a hard comparison for some. Personally, I have very little faith in Bethesda and loathe their overall design choices, so it's definitely FF16 for me.
 
I was think more of the general word of mouth and how the game's element fell far short of what the developers and publishers hyped for the game. What killed CP2077 wasn't just the bugs, (in fact I played it on PC and didn't encounter many bugs), it was that combined with all the other letdowns that turned it into a perfect storm of disappointment.
Its the other way around. I've seen enough of this kind of situation happening to know that people get pissed first and find problems later. Go read the "list of lies" people made on reddit and almost everything is nitpicking, balance/creative changes (like no third person cutscenes, which i find much better actually), their own interpretations on something that was show or some vague thing that was said, or just plain wrong (like some guy saying only 2% of missions had different paths, which is a bold faced lie).

If the game had launched at a perfect or almost perfect state in terms of performance and bugs, even if it played exactly like it does now, people would be singing praises for it and it would be game of the generation or whatever. Maybe a few would see its shortcomings, much like many people see the shortcomings of games like The Witcher 3, but those would be the vocal minority and might have even got silenced by people singing praise to heavens towards the game, much like The Witcher 3.

Truth is, the average player active in these reddit, youtube and other places have 0 idea of what makes a game good or bad, they only understand whats immediately in front of them, and what was immediatly in front of a lot of people were 15 fps set pieces and t-posing bugs. They got angry and went on to vent that anger by trying to find reasons to accuse the devs of being the worst company ever, and the game of being worst game ever. Anger begot anger, people who felt similar got together feeding each others feelings, and things snowballed. Thats all there is to it.
 
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Its the other way around. I've seen enough of this kind of situation happening to know that people get pissed first and find problems later. Go read the "list of lies" people made on reddit and almost everything is nitpicking, balance/creative changes (like no third person cutscenes, which i find much better actually), their own interpretations on something that was show or some vague thing that was said, or just plain wrong (like some guy saying only 2% of missions had different paths, which is a bold faced lie).

If the game had launched at a perfect or almost perfect state in terms of performance and bugs, even if it played exactly like it does now, people would be singing praises for it and it would be game of the generation or whatever. Maybe a few would see its shortcomings, much like many people see the shortcomings of games like The Witcher 3, but those would be the vocal minority and might have even got silenced by people singing praise to heavens towards the game, much like The Witcher 3.

Truth is, the average player active in these reddit, youtube and other places have 0 idea of what makes a game good or bad, they only understand whats immediately in front of them, and what was immediatly in front of a lot of people were 15 fps set pieces and t-posing bugs. They got angry and went on to vent that anger by trying to find reasons to accuse the devs of being the worst company ever, and the game of being worst game ever. Anger begot anger, people who felt similar got together feeding each others feelings, and things snowballed. Thats all there is to it.
Well, let's just say we completely disagree on this. I preordered the game and loved the Witcher series. So I wasn't looking to hate the game, I also played it on the PC and didn't encountered a litany of bugs, here and there but not a big deal. But the game was just not anywhere close to what was promoted. The reason they didn't allow 3rd person view was that their animation was screwed up, they also didn't allow you to see yourself in any reflections either, because it would have looked like a twisted figure. Instead they made a few mirrors in the game where you had to interact with just so they can then generate a separate model for you to look at. Short cuts like that was all over the game, they cut corners everywhere and probably released the game at least one year before they should have. In fact the game left such a sour taste for me that I have never touched it again after finishing it, I also don't intend to ever buy its DLC or buy anything off their platform again.
The reason the negativity snowballed is because there were a lot of negativity period. Stop pretending that people only became negative because they were told to be.
 
I know I will prefer FFXVI, but both games will be excellent to play I am sure. Even at its worst (not counting FO76 as a thing), Bethesda games are at the very least entertaining.

As RPGs, they are both so wildly different from each other that there is very little overlap between people.
 
I don't give a shyte about FF games, and even though I don't have an XBox I'm sure Starfield would be a far more enjoyable game for my tastes.
 
Hard to say since if Starfield was on PlayStation it wouldn't even be a question since it would surpass it easy in sales, they are going to lose at least half the sales to that, and many will gamepass it I am guessing. As far as reviewing who cares metacritic is crap and should die anyway but are FF games even that great anymore, I would take Starfield on that.

oh, I thought FF was also going to Xbox I guess not so maybe closer in sales, so Starfield might pull that out too
 
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Well, let's just say we completely disagree on this. I preordered the game and loved the Witcher series. So I wasn't looking to hate the game, I also played it on the PC and didn't encountered a litany of bugs, here and there but not a big deal. But the game was just not anywhere close to what was promoted.
Thats the criticism i take issue with, i didn't accompany the hype too closely so i don't know everything, but whenever i look back at the promotion material and what people claim "they lied about", everything just look like creative and balance changes to me, or plain nitpicking. As a matter of fact, that 48 minute gameplay demo they showed looked extremely rough compared to the final product. The gun shop was awful, the view from V's apartment looked terrible, some game mechanics were plain bloat (like that thing of clicking an ad to show where the product is, and no, something like this isn't hard to implement so they didn't cut it due to lack of time, budget or whatever), not to mention a bunch of things taking agency off the player which is important in these kinds of games.

The reason they didn't allow 3rd person view was that their animation was screwed up, they also didn't allow you to see yourself in any reflections either, because it would have looked like a twisted figure.
This another a very poor interpretation people frequently have. You see, none of that is hard to implement either. Its much more likely that the lack of your own reflection was an oversight rather than an explicit attempt to hide something, remember RT was put rather late into development and not really intended for the game.
Fixing animations for 3rd person view wouldn't be hard either, in fact the reason they look "screwed up" in the first place is because the body movement that plays and feels good in 1st person (remember you can see your own body) is completely different from the one that would look good in 3rd person view, and all that 3rd person mod does is allow you to see that 1st person body movement in 3rd person.

What would be hard is making sure that 3rd person didn't look like bethesda jank while also making sure the game doesn't play differently from first person, a glaring issue you can see in GTA V and RDR2 for example (what is even worse since those games have online mode).

Instead they made a few mirrors in the game where you had to interact with just so they can then generate a separate model for you to look at. Short cuts like that was all over the game, they cut corners everywhere and probably released the game at least one year before they should have.
Every game has corner cutting somewhere and cut content elsewhere. This is normal, you just didn't notice it in other games. Its natural you didn't since most games don't have internet squads dedicated to finding every little problem within them and shit on it at every opportunity. Did you like Elden Ring? The Witcher 3? Do you want me to show all the places those games were very obviously cutting corners (and trust me, there were plenty).

Stop pretending that people only became negative because they were told to be.
Unfortunatly, whether you like it or not, thats more or less how public mass opinion works. Its not just in gaming either.
 
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PC is the bread and butter of Bethesda game sales, and with Starfield releasing day 1 on PC while Final Fantasy XVI is not, Starfield will not only review better, it will absolutely sell better by several magnitudes larger than FF XVI.
 
Define "sell better" if Starfield is on Game Pass Day 1?

TBH, I think FFXVI reviews and sells better (actual copies sold, not GP).
 
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While Fallout 4 reception was a bit lukewarm, it has the elements that made their previous games great. I think Bethesda still has what it takes to make a groundbreaking game.

Square Enix on the other hand have greatly drifted from their glory days in PS1/PS2 era. So i have less faith in them. Would like to get surprised though.
 
You say this like it's a bad thing...
It's cool that we're getting games day 1 but I'm not one of those who think the economics will work out. In short I don't buy games on Xbox anymore. It has to come with some consequences eventually.
Trying to get there on Playstation 5 as well but it's harder since PS+ don't get games day 1 yet, so I buy more on PS no doubt.
 
It's cool that we're getting games day 1 but I'm not one of those who think the economics will work out. In short I don't buy games on Xbox anymore. It has to come with some consequences eventually.
Trying to get there on Playstation 5 as well but it's harder since PS+ don't get games day 1 yet, so I buy more on PS no doubt.
I don't buy movies anymore either, or CDs, and they're just fine.
 
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