Forbidden Universe

PS5 owners report that Final Fantasy 16 is overheating their consoles, causing them to shut down entirely.

Last week before Final Fantasy 16 even launched, there were strong hints of its boss fights causing PS5s to overheat from those who were playing the game ahead of launch. As first noticed by Push Square, now that Square Enix's new game is out in the wild, others are also chipping in with their experience of their new-gen consoles overheating, just like the poor individual just below.

A lot of speculation surrounding the overheating stems from Final Fantasy 16's graphics mode. This mode, as you can probably imagine by the name, brings all the PS5s weight to bear to make the game look as good as possible, and players are theorizing that it's purely this mode that's causing consoles to overheat during both big and small moments.

However, that's not entirely true. We've had our own experience of a crash in Final Fantasy 16, and it came about while we were playing in the performance mode, which scales down the graphics somewhat for a stable 60FPS output. It looks like, at least from a cursory investigation, the graphics mode isn't the prime culprit here.

It's difficult to say what's causing the overheating, especially because multiple players, like the one above, claim their PS5 is dust-free. Here's hoping Square Enix is at least aware of the situation and investigating, although the developer did previously apologize for the day one patch, so who knows how much apologizing there'll be if a new update rolls around.

You can head over to our guide on the best Final Fantasy 16 abilities for hints on what you should be unlocking for.