Final Fantasy Producer Naoki Yoshida Says There's Not a 'Clear-Cut Answer' Whether Future Entries Will Be Turn-Based, Following Clair Obscur's Success

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been 1 of the breakout hits of 2025. It's besides a classically styled turn-based role-playing game, taking cues from galore fashionable series, including Final Fantasy. These 2 factors person some led to galore questions astir whether Final Fantasy mightiness instrumentality to its ain roots, and present the question's been posed to 1 of Final Fantasy's front-facing leads.

Naoki Yoshida, the director/producer of Final Fantasy 14 and shaper of Final Fantasy 16, was asked successful an interrogation with AnimeNewsNetwork whether mainline Final Fantasy games could spell backmost to being turn-based, successful the aftermath of Clair Obscur's success.

"With this question of turn-based versus action, it tends to isolate the gameplay to conscionable the conflict system," said Yoshida. "That doesn't instrumentality into relationship what benignant of crippled the creators privation to present to players. For example, based connected a definite graphical prime we privation to contiguous to our players, oregon the communicative we privation to present to our players, it relates to however we acceptable up the game's systems astir it. This includes the conflict system, crippled design, and gameplay feel. It's not a clear-cut answer, whether it volition go each turn-based, oregon if it's going to go much action-based.

"[I'm] not needfully going to beryllium connected Final Fantasy 17, truthful we besides don't privation to obstruct oregon bounds our aboriginal manager oregon whomever volition beryllium producing the games similar 17 oregon adjacent 18," Yoshida continued. "We don't privation to enactment them connected a rail."

The answer, essentially, is inactive up successful the air. Final Fantasy changes with each entry, aft all; speech from creating caller stories and casts for each mainline numbered entry, each crippled tin scope from highly iterative to full-on evolutions oregon change-ups. Looking astatine the gameplay shifts from, say, Final Fantasy 9 connected done 12 and 13 emphasizes however the bid often shakes things up for each successive installment.

Yoshida has talked astir this successful the past, wrong the discourse of Final Fantasy 16 opting for a precise action-oriented system. That introduction tried to entreaty to a antithetic crowd, due to the fact that of the "expected" income and interaction of a mainline Final Fantasy.

We've had these conversations before, astir the aboriginal of Final Fantasy, and volition astir apt person them again. After all, simply judging by the improvement timelines of the past fewer mainline games, it mightiness beryllium a spot until we commencement proceeding astir Final Fantasy 17, overmuch little 18 oregon beyond.

Meanwhile, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its improvement squad astatine Sandfall Interactive person surely struck occurrence by honing successful connected their goals and passions, truthful possibly that is the existent nonsubjective to strive towards.

Eric is simply a freelance writer for IGN.