Final Fantasy 16 difficulty explained and how to change them

Keeping with the trend of games offering difficult settings that allow you to simply experience the story without a gruelling challenge, you might be happy to hear that the Final Fantasy 16 difficulty settings work in a similar manner. If you're up for the struggle, they've got you covered. And if you're just looking to see the story play out instead of spending countless hours perfecting a build for a boss battle, you're good there, too.

Final Fantasy 16 has you catered on both sides of the coin. It doesn't use dynamic difficulty tweaks to carefully balance things slightly in your favour behind the scenes, but you can easily switch between settings to get you through a tough spot you just can't weather.

How to change the difficulty setting in Final Fantasy 16

So long as you're not in a battle or a cutscene, you can actually change the difficulty level of Final Fantasy 16 at any moment. If things aren't working out in a tough battle and you just want to move on, just hit Start, go into the Game Settings tab, and toggle the setting in Gameplay section you find there.

What difficulty settings are there in Final Fantasy 16?

When you first fire up the game, you'll be able to choose between two different difficulty settings: Action-focused and Story-focused. There's also a third we'll talk a little about below.

What's the difference between difficulty settings in Final Fantasy 16?

Despite the phrasing, neither one will really change the core experience. You'll still get the same story beats on Action-focused, and you'll still face off against the same types of enemies in Story-focused mode as well.

What these two settings do is tweak the difficulty of the battles you get into. Monsters will put up more of a fight, dealing more damage, taking less damage, and generally being more challenging. You'll even find areas teeming with more monsters on Action-focused, making it harder to reach your end goal.

On the Story-focused mode, you'll have to engage in fewer battles throughout the game. And the ones you do wind up in should be noticeably easier, too. You'll deal more damage, take less damage, and find it easier to avoid enemy attacks. It's designed to make progressing the story take less time, and by getting into fewer fights and seeing fewer Game Over screens, this setting should allow even the busiest or most inexperienced player see the end of Clive's story.

Is there a harder difficulty setting in Final Fantasy 16?

If the Action-focused mode is proving a little too easy for you, just stick at it: there's a secret third difficulty mode you'll unlock once the credits roll. We explain it a little more in our FF16 New Game Plus guide, so give that a read if you're planning on playing through the game again.

While you're plugging away at Clive's adventure, check out what to sell in Final Fantasy 16. If you're struggling with your build, knowing how to turn junk into cash can really help you dodge the need to turn the difficulty down a peg. And if you haven't figured it out already, here's how to lock on, and even how to save your game so you can go back to your favourite moments without starting fresh.