Naoki Yoshida, also known as Yoshi-P, thinks Final Fantasy 17 should be directed by someone new in order to make an experience “with challenges that suit today’s world.”
Yoshi-P was interviewed by Shuhei Yoshida of Sony on the Game Maker’s Notebook podcast in a candid discussion regarding the development of Final Fantasy 14 and 16, in addition to the future of the general series.
When asked as a joke if he was going to direct Final Fantasy 17, Yoshi-P replied that Square Enix has not made a decision yet. In his words, “I’ve had a chance to work on two of these…so maybe it’s time for someone now, instead of having the same old guys handle the next one.”
To whoever is planning to direct the next installment, Yoshi-P’s advice is simply “to just dive in and first put down on paper what you believe would be the most enjoyable FF, before thinking too hard about it. Final Fantasy is about challenging what’s been done before, and 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!”
In terms of the direction for a potential Final Fantasy 17, Yoshi-P said it could combine both turn-based combat and real-time action combat (alluding to the split in the community”, or take to the extreme of returning to pixel art roots.
He then made a more serious reply, saying that he would “like to see Square Enix use this gained experience [from 16] to continue challenging ourselves in the action genre, to make what we haven’t made yet, with even greater storytelling, emotion, and impact… Is our next game going to be another weighty, serious fantasy, or maybe a grand adventure story for a younger audience?” No matter what, it’s “more fun pushing the limits.”
Yoshi-P is incredibly humble despite his success, stating it was a “huge honor” to be asked to lead the team after how well Final Fantasy 14 did. He’s also discussed how he deals with toxic commentary.
“We were taking on these huge expectations because it was part of a series, and on top of that, some aspects of the previous game were poorly received, so with this new one, we felt we absolutely had to make a comeback of sorts, too,” he said.
In terms of the game’s theme, he went on to say, “I wanted to use this new Final Fantasy to depict that the world has some hope in it and that humanity has, in the end, a certain greatness to it”. Plus by showing the unpleasant aspects of the world and its people “the good aspects of this world become believable and real”, hence the mature tone.
As of now, Creative Business Unit III (CBU 3) is working on DLC for Final Fantasy 16. Later this year, the next expansion to Final Fantasy 14, entitled Dawntrail, will drop.