Naoki Yoshida – producer of Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 14 – has revealed in an interview that the future of the Final Fantasy franchise doesn’t necessarily involve going back to the series’ traditional turn-based combat. In an interview with Anime News Network, Yoshida spoke about how the direction of the next Final Fantasy game will ultimately come down to what its developer wants to make.
In the interview, Yoshida said that the decision to make Final Fantasy 16 to feature real-time action combat didn’t come about because of some attempt at trend-chasing by Square Enix’s leadership. Rather, the decision was made by the people actually working on the game. He also spoke about how the gameplay for any game tends to be more than just its combat system.
“With this question of turn-based versus action, it tends to isolate the gameplay to just the battle system,” Yoshida said. “That doesn’t take into account what kind of game the creators want to deliver to players.”
He explained that new Final Fantasy games are typically made to hit a new level of graphical quality. In the interview, he said that they are “based on a certain graphical quality we want to present to our players, or the narrative we want to deliver to our players”. Gameplay elements themselves are often left up to the game’s developers.
“It’s not a clear-cut answer, whether it will become all turn-based, or if it’s going to become more action-based,” he explained.
As for what we can expect from Final Fantasy 17 or 18, Yoshida also mentioned that he wouldn’t be helming the titles this time around. When it comes to gameplay, the company also doesn’t want to put any limits or hard requirements about what kind of combat will be featured in the next games.
“We also don’t want to obstruct or limit our future director or whoever will be producing the games like 17 or even 18. We don’t want to put them on a rail,” said Yoshida.
Final Fantasy 15 and 16 were considered big departures for the mainline series thanks to their real-time combat systems. Traditionally, the Final Fantasy franchise has either featured turn-based combat, or a twist on the turn-based formula which adds in a hint of real-time combat to it, dubbed the Active Time Battle system.
The success of Sandfall Interactive’s own turn-based RPG, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, had also recently prompted Square Enix shareholders to question the company’s leadership about the direction of the Final Fantasy series. When asked about this, president Takashi Kiryu spoke about how Square Enix still acknowledges the popularity of turn-based RPGs, and has plans to make and release more of them down the line.
Currently, when it comes to the Final Fantasy series, Square Enix has the third game of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy under development. It is worth noting that this trilogy also features real-time combat, albeit with some elements of the classic Active-Time Battle system.
Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles is also coming out at the end of September on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.
