PS5's are overheating thanks to Final Fantasy 16 – but there's a simple fix

03 July 2023 , 17:00

488     0

Ifrit may fry your PS5 with this Final Fantasy 16 overheating issue (Image: Square Enix)

Final Fantasy 16 is very hot right now, so hot that players are dealing with overheating and subsequently crashing PS5 consoles for simply trying to play the game.

You would assume with Final Fantasy 16 being a PS5 exclusive that the game would work almost flawlessly on the Sony system. But as it turns out, Square Enix's latest adventure is just too hot to handle for a fair number of PlayStation users, with the game causing consoles to overhead and – in some cases – crash completely (pretty ironic for a game featuring a giant evil fire demon).

According to a post on Reddit (via Push Square) this crash takes place during a specific cutscene in the game while playing in the games Graphics mode. Users in the comments of the post are also reporting the same issue, with one user saying "Exact same thing happens to me at this spot. Game is running fine and then fans go crazy and ps5 beeps and shuts off without warning at this exact moment". Another user over on Twitter is reporting the same problem during the exact same cutscene as the poster on Reddit.

Obviously climate and other factors (like how dusty your PS5 is can play into this) as another Reddit user pointed out I replayed this part of the game. "Only in this cutscene (Knight of the Lasting Dark) is where the system fan goes overboard. Although I didn't get a shutdown or warning this time, the PS5 would stress itself at this moment of the game for a couple seconds." later saying that this "basically confirms that when this cutscene plays, it can cause problems".

Eikon of Fire

From personal experience I experienced this multiple times while playing the game in Performance mode, however this was before launch and there's a chance my issue was cleared up by the day one patch.

Mansion snapped up in three days despite being on fire in property listing

I did eventually remedy this issue by taking the faceplates off the PS5 and giving the vents a good clean where the dust had amassed. I also pointed my fan at it just as a precaution, and while that may have been a bit extreme I've not had a crash since. However, if you've had a PS5 for a long time like I have I would suggest opening it up and clearing out some of the dust if you run into this issue.

Scott McCrae