Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been one of the breakout hits of 2025. It's additionally a classically styled turn-based role-playing game, taking cues from many standard sequence, together with Final Fantasy. These two elements have each led to many questions on whether or not Final Fantasy would possibly return to its own roots, and now the query's been posed to at least one 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 may go back to being turn-based, within the wake of Clair Obscur's success.
"With this question of turn-based versus action, it tends to isolate the gameplay to just the battle system," stated Yoshida. "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.
"[I'm] not essentially going to be on Final Fantasy 17, so we additionally don't wish to hinder or restrict our future director or whomever will likely be producing the video games like 17 and even 18," Yoshida continued. "We don't wish to put them on a rail."
The answer, essentially, is still up in the air. Final Fantasy changes with each entry, after all; aside from creating new stories and casts for each mainline numbered entry, each game can range from highly iterative to full-on evolutions or change-ups. Looking at the gameplay shifts from, say, Final Fantasy 9 on through 12 and 13 emphasizes how the series often shakes things up for each successive installment.
Yoshida has talked about this in the past, within the context of Final Fantasy 16 opting for a very action-oriented system. That entry tried to appeal to a different crowd, because of the "anticipated" gross sales and affect of a mainline Final Fantasy.
We've had these conversations earlier than, across the future of Final Fantasy, and can most likely have them again. After all, merely judging by the development timelines of the previous few mainline video games, it may be a bit till we begin listening to about Final Fantasy 17, a lot much less 18 or past.
Meanwhile, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and its growth group at Sandfall Interactive have certainly struck success by honing in on their targets and passions, so maybe that is the true objective to strive towards.
Eric is a freelance author for IGN.