As Final Fantasy 16 players battle being eaten by the graphical hiccup abyss on PS5, Square Enix and Sony say they’re on the case

I don't mean to alarm you, but some Final Fantasy 16 players on PS5 have recently found their nice little playthroughs invaded by large black blobs or boxes that threaten to ruin poor Clive's day. No, this isn't some DLC, it looks to be part of some graphical issues that've followed a recent update to the console's firmware, which Sony and Square Enix have said they're looking into.

Taking a glance at Reddit or Twitter, you'll find a number of posts with players showing off or talking about problems they've run into. My personal favorite is the clip I've embedded below of someone having to outrun a void that's seemingly decided to chase them around a bit and momentarily swallow Mr Rosfield whole.

"The PS5 system update yesterday is causing major graphical bugs in FFXVI during some cutscenes and portions of game play," one player wrote of this particular issue in a tweet, "Bug progresses to blacking out the screen, temporarily receded by opening the active time lore menu."

Others have reported having their consoles go through a sudden hard shutdown midway through playing the game after the deployment of the latest PS5 firmware update, with one Reddit user writing: I've had the same thing yesterday, complete hard shutdown after a cutscene, even had to rebuild database and repair external HDD like there had been a power outage. Not playing again it until the game gets patched."

Thankfully, Sony and Square Enix already look to be on the case, with a tweet from the official Final Fantasy account reading: "Following the recent release of the PlayStation 5 system update, there have been reports of the game crashing and graphical issues. We are currently working with SIE to investigate, and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused. Please await our further updates."

So, there you go. Hopefully Clive and co don't get consumed by the void too many times before a fix arrives. Maybe this a warning that Square Enix will send that same void after anyone who immediately starts making particularly weird mods for the game once it hits PC today.