Naoki Yoshida on Final Fantasy's Future: Open Combat Direction for Mainline Titles and FFXIV's Long-Term Vision
- ⚡Xe⚡
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
During Anime Expo 2025, in an interview with Anime News Network, Naoki Yoshida discussed several key points about the direction of the Final Fantasy series.
He confirmed again that Square Enix will continue its multi-platform release strategy, citing recent example from Creative Studio III.
For sure, this was also announced by our president and CEO, Takashi Kiryu. Our Square Enix strategy is that we want to go multi-platform for our future titles. As you have seen, in terms of titles released from our Creative Studio III, we announced that Final Fantasy Tactics Ivalice Chronicles will be releasing on September 30, multi-platform. It is safe to assume that we will strive for multi-platform release moving forward.
Asked whether future mainline entries might return to turn-based combat, Yoshida explained that battle systems are just one element of a much broader game design process.
With this question of turn-based versus action, it tends to isolate the gameplay to just the battle system. That doesn't take into account what kind of game the creators want to deliver to players. For example, based on a certain graphical quality we want to present to our players, or the narrative we want to deliver to our players, it relates to how we set up the game's systems around it. This includes the battle system, game design, and gameplay feel. 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 also mentioned that he may not lead development on Final Fantasy XVII or XVIII and emphasized the importance of leaving future teams free to make their own creative decisions.
[I'm] not necessarily going to be on Final Fantasy 17, so we also don't want to obstruct or limit our future director or whomever will be producing the games like 17 or even 18. We don't want to put them on a rail.
On the MMO side, Yoshida said the Final Fantasy XIV team has already outlined a general roadmap up to version 10.0.
To share about our creative process, the team and I usually plan very far in advance. Right now we're in expansion 7.0 Dawntrail, but we already have a general idea of plans up to 10.0. We're working towards a framework that we have built for ourselves. That being said, we also have our story from the original 1.0 Final Fantasy XIV through our previous Endwalker expansion, 6.0, and that's not going away. That's still going to be there.
From a general perspective, we will take Dawntrail as our next roller coaster. There's going to be a lot of ups and downs and exciting stories that you can expect out of this and future releases as well.
Although FFXI and FFXIV remain the studio’s primary online projects, Yoshida said he would be interested in exploring a new online IP unrelated to the Final Fantasy series.
That said, if I were to explore other options, perhaps creating an original IP might be interesting. We recently announced Killer Inn, but Final Fantasy XI and XIV are our primary online games. I want to explore another online game that's not Final Fantasy XIV.
Reflecting on the development of Final Fantasy XVI, he highlighted production efficiency and scalability as lessons that could be applied to future projects.
There's a lot, but if I were to pick one, we were able to learn how to produce a high-end video game. There were a lot of learning points through that, and I feel like we gleaned a lot of know-how through the process. I want to challenge myself or apply to future works on how we can swiftly produce something of high quality and minimize the development period without lowering the quality.
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-⚡Xe⚡
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