Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been one of many breakout hits of 2025. It is also a classically styled turn-based role-playing sport, taking cues from many in style sequence, together with Final Fantasy. These two components have each led to many questions on whether or not Final Fantasy may return to its personal roots, and now the query’s been posed to one in every of Final Fantasy’s front-facing leads.
Naoki Yoshida, the director/producer of Final Fantasy 14 and producer of Final Fantasy 16, was requested in an interview with AnimeNewsNetwork whether or not mainline Final Fantasy video games might return to being turn-based, within the wake of Clair Obscur’s success.
“With this query of turn-based versus motion, it tends to isolate the gameplay to simply the battle system,” mentioned Yoshida. “That does not consider what sort of sport the creators wish to ship to gamers. For instance, primarily based on a sure graphical high quality we wish to current to our gamers, or the narrative we wish to ship to our gamers, it pertains to how we arrange the sport’s methods round it. This consists of the battle system, sport design, and gameplay really feel. It is not a clear-cut reply, whether or not it should turn into all turn-based, or if it should turn into extra action-based.
“[I’m] not essentially going to be on Final Fantasy 17, so we additionally do not wish to hinder or restrict our future director or whomever might be producing the video games like 17 and even 18,” Yoshida continued. “We do not wish to put them on a rail.”
The reply, basically, continues to be up within the air. Final Fantasy modifications with every entry, in spite of everything; apart from creating new tales and casts for every mainline numbered entry, every sport can vary from extremely iterative to full-on evolutions or change-ups. Wanting on the gameplay shifts from, say, Final Fantasy 9 on by 12 and 13 emphasizes how the sequence usually shakes issues up for every successive installment.
Finest Mainline Final Fantasy Video games
Finest Mainline Final Fantasy Video games
Yoshida has talked about this previously, inside the context of Final Fantasy 16 choosing a very action-oriented system. That entry tried to appeal to a different crowd, due to the “anticipated” gross sales and affect of a mainline Final Fantasy.
We have had these conversations earlier than, round the way forward for Final Fantasy, and can most likely have them once more. In spite of everything, merely judging by the event timelines of the previous few mainline video games, it is perhaps a bit till we begin listening to about Final Fantasy 17, a lot much less 18 or past.
In the meantime, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its improvement workforce at Sandfall Interactive have actually struck success by honing in on their objectives and passions, so perhaps that’s the true goal to attempt in direction of.
Eric is a freelance author for IGN.