The Hideaway
Your hub between chapters. Everything that grows your power lives here.
| Facility | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Blacksmith | Craft and reinforce weapons, armour and accessories from materials. The only place gear improves. |
| Merchant (Charon) | Buy potions, materials and consumables; sell junk. Restock potions before every story push. |
| Hunt Board | Accept Notorious Mark hunts (see Bosses & Hunts) — your rare-material pipeline. |
| Arete Stone | Training mode (practice combos free of stakes & earn AP), replay past Eikon battles, and fast-travel (the Stagecoach). |
| The Patron's hall | Where sidequests are picked up and the Hideaway grows as you complete them. |
| Harpocrates & the Tomes | Lore keeper — the "Thousand Tomes" and Active Time Lore. Lore quizzes can hand out useful items. |
| Orchestrion | Play unlocked music tracks — pure flavour. |
Smithing & the weapon chase
- Weapons matter most. Each weapon has an Attack and a Stagger value. Reinforce your current weapon, or craft a new one from a recipe — recipes come from sidequests and hunts, materials from hunts and bosses.
- Armour is simple. A few slots (belt / vambraces / body) for Defense and HP. There's little build depth here — equip the highest you can craft and move on.
- Accessories are the real gear build — ability augments and combat boosts (covered on Builds). Craft and upgrade these as your hunt materials pile up.
- The ultimate weapons are gated. The strongest base-game blade is locked behind Final Fantasy Mode materials; the overall ultimate, Gotterdammerung, requires The Rising Tide DLC and its toughest content. Don't expect to finish the weapon chain on a first, normal playthrough.
Don't over-grind gear. On a first run, just keep your weapon reinforced and craft armour when materials allow — the difficulty is tuned around abilities and skill, not gear score. Save the weapon chase for Final Fantasy Mode.
Which ones to actually do
Sidequests range from flavour errands to genuinely build-relevant rewards. Watch the marker:
- Star / crystal-marked quests are the ones that pay off — they raise your potion capacity, upgrade Torgal's kit, improve the Limit Break, and unlock gear recipes and ability augments.
- Do the marked quests before each point of no return. A cluster of important sidequests opens just before the finale — clearing them first nets the best recipes, more potions, and Torgal's full ability set for the final stretch.
- Pure-flavour errands still build the world and the Hideaway, but skip them on a tight schedule — you can mop up via replay afterward.
Few true missablesThanks to the world reopening and the stage-replay system, XVI has almost nothing you can permanently lose. The "completion" effort is breadth — hunts, quests, trials — not a fragile missable checklist.
Final Fantasy Mode & the trials
| Mode | What it is |
|---|---|
| Final Fantasy Mode | New Game+ on hard. Remixed, tougher enemy placements, a raised level cap, new and stronger gear/materials, and a stiffer stagger economy. The intended "real" playthrough for veterans — and where the top weapons become craftable. |
| Arcade Mode | Replay any stage for a score and letter rank. Great for drilling combos and chasing S-ranks. |
| Ultimaniac | The hardest Arcade tier — score-attack for the truly confident. |
| Chronolith Trials | Timed combat challenges with a restricted ability set; clearing them rewards unique accessories. A pure test of execution. |
Platinum/100% effectively means clearing Final Fantasy Mode, finishing every hunt, S-ranking Arcade stages and beating the Chronoliths — a breadth-and-skill grind rather than a luck grind.
The DLC
| DLC | Adds |
|---|---|
| Echoes of the Fallen | A new story chapter in the Sagespire tower, fresh gear and ability augments, and a brutal optional superboss. Best played late in the campaign or post-game. |
| The Rising Tide | The Mysidia region, the Leviathan Eikon and its abilities, new sidequests, the Kairos Gate endless horde challenge, and the ultimate weapon Gotterdammerung. |
Both DLCs unlock from save points / the world map once installed and you've reached the required story point. The Rising Tide in particular is endgame-grade — tackle it with a finished build, ideally on Final Fantasy Mode for the full weapon payoff.
Sources & further reading
This guide distills the fundamentals in our own words; for exhaustive numbers — every ability value, accessory, mark location and recipe — lean on:
- Final Fantasy Wiki — FF XVI — the deep reference for Eikonic abilities, accessories, hunts and gear.
- GameFAQs — sidequest order, trophy roadmaps and the Final Fantasy Mode weapon chain.