Final Fantasy 17: Square Enix and Sony veterans talk about what it could be

We are still waiting for Final Fantasy 16 to receive its second DLC and conclude (assuming it is truly the end) the story of the sixteenth chapter, but a certain portion of the public is already thinking about the distant future and the arrival of Final Fantasy 17. What could this new chapter be like? The producer of FF 16 Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P for fans) and Shuhei Yoshida from Sony talked about the topic, putting forward interesting ideas.

During the AIAS Game Maker's Notebook podcast, Yoshi-P was asked if he will direct Final Fantasy 17. After hesitating because “she's on the board now,” he sidestepped the question and said that “maybe it's time for someone new to take over the next project, instead of having the same old ones.”

“I think that in some ways it would be good to look to the future and involve a younger generationwith a more youthful sensibility, to create a new Final Fantasy with challenges suited to today's world,” said Yoshi-P.

What could Final Fantasy 17 be like?

Shuhei Yoshida later asked Yoshi-P what advice he would give to a young director of Final Fantasy 17, and the famous producer prefaced his answer by saying: “Final Fantasy is about challenging what's been done before.” And it is for this reason that he thought about the possibility of two very different Final Fantasy 17s.

“While I certainly don't want to mess with older games, we all make Final Fantasy games thinking that 'mine will be the most fun!'. So my advice is to dive in and write down what you think is the most fun Final Fantasy before you think about it too much.”

“Then, from there, you can decide things like: since [Final Fantasy] 16 was a real-time action game, my Final Fantasy will have both real-time action and turn-based battles. Or you can go to the other extreme and take it back to its completely turn-based, pixel-art origins.”

To this last option, Shuhei Yoshida responded: “It would be revolutionary!”.

It will probably still take a long time before we can find out what the next Final Fantasy will be like, in the meantime it's probably best to enjoy the Final Fantasy 14 x Final Fantasy 16 crossover.