Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida emphasizes to RPGsite that the main focus of the upcoming action-RPG is to deliver a complete story experience without chopping it into multiple parts across different mediums, as happened with Final Fantasy 15.
“We put our main focus, even more than action, on that story," Yoshida (or Yoshi-P) defines the main focus this time, then follows it up with a reflection on FF15's major problems during release and even after release. "And you look back at the previous games, at FF15 - they had their story, but it wasn't complete. And then they try to make it complete, and then they promise some more story, but then they don't give us the story...", he concludes, proving how clearly aware he is of Final Fantasy 15's disappointing handling.
Fans could probably use the reassurance, especially after seeing how incomplete Final Fantasy 15 was at launch. The game needed an entire Royal Edition and a plethora of story-related updates to patch up its haphazardous narrative, not to mention shoehorning all of its ending and future content into a single written novel.
Fortunately, Final Fantasy 16 is shaping up to be even more complete than other major modern releases, as it won't even include a Day 1 patch (via Game Informer), and everything we will get on disc is the entire game.
That said, the developers stress that not having a Day 1 patch does not mean they aren't constantly looking for bugs, or that they won't patch any issues that come up after launch. They just want to recreate a classic Final Fantasy experience where you can enjoy the game as it comes out of the box, no strings attached or hidden requirments.
Talking to 4Gamer, the developers believe that the story is properly (and beautifully) wrapped up here. This was only possible by first creating a solid background world that spans 4000 years and a history that adds substance to every nation, culture, and geography. They also tease that there's enough foundation to create a FFXVI-2, but they think it would be better if someone else handled it, since they put their heart and soul into this one,
An excerpt from the Easy Allies interview (as reported by Gamingbolt) adds that the focus is not only on having a complete story from start to finish, but also on having a story that would resonate with all types of players, old fans and new fans alike, and delivering a complete story is just one step toward that ideal goal.