Prologues in fantasy fiction serve as an opportunity to tee up the stakes ahead, tease a mystery being threaded throughout the main story, or deliver a heart-racing action sequence to supply your dopamine fix early. One of the best examples of this is the opening for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which ticked all three boxes, and it looks like Square Enix took a page out of Peter Jackson’s book (well, movie) for their latest Final Fantasy 16 demo, which has a striking resemblance to the Tolkien sequel.
Final Fantasy 16's Opening Has A Ton Of Lord Of The Rings Connections
Yes, it's basically the Balrog fight from Two Towers, but there's more to it than that.