Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida, AKA Yoshi-P, has floated two very early ideas for Final Fantasy 17: a hybrid of real-time and more traditional turn-based combat, and another that would bring the series back to its pixel art roots.
Speaking to Sony veteran Shuhei Yoshida for the AIAS Game Maker's Notebook Podcast (timestamped here), Yoshi-P was asked whether he'll be directing Final Fantasy 17. After hesitating because he's "on the board of directors now," he skirted around the question and offered that, "maybe it's time for someone new instead of having the same old guys handle the next one." Dang, tough break, Tetsuya Nomura.
"I think in some ways it would be good to look to the future and bring in a younger generation, with more youthful sensibilities to make a new Final Fantasy with challenges that suit today's world," Yoshi-P said.
Following up on that, Yoshida asked Yoshi-P what advice he would give a younger Final Fantasy 17 director, and the famed producer preceded his answer by saying "Final Fantasy is about challenging what's been done before." And it's for that reason that he pondered the possibility of two very different Final Fantasy 17s.
"While I'm certainly not looking to pick a fight with the older games, we all make Final Fantasy games thinking 'mine will be the most fun!' So my advice is to just dive in and first put down on paper what you believe would be the most enjoyable Final Fantasy before thinking too hard about it.
"Then, from there, you can decide things like, since [Final Fantasy] 16 was real-time action, my Final Fantasy is going to have both real-time action and turn-based battles. Or you could go the other extreme and return it to its fully turn-based, pixel art roots."
To that last option, Yoshida replied, "That would be groundbreaking!"
Notably, this isn't the first time Yoshi-P's brought up a Final Fantasy 17 with pixel art, even though he's clearly just spitballing in both instances. Back in June 2022, he informally suggested that, if the Final Fantasy series does return to full turn-based combat, it should also be presented with pixel art graphics in order to "fit that system better."
While he also admitted at the time that, "If you decided to go back to pixel graphics with that, then people are gonna be like, 'Hey, what are you doing here? Why are you going back to pixel graphics?', Square Enix has expressed interest in more games in the HD-2D style of Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, and the upcoming Dragon Quest remakes - so it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility.
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