Final Fantasy 16 Designers Discuss Why The Series Hasn’t Been Turn-Based For A While

The Final Fantasy series’ numbered entries haven’t been turn-based RPGs for quite some time. The series is moving away from the traditional turn-based RPG roots and towards a more action-oriented combat system with each game. Final Fantasy XVI’s combat system is more turn-based than ever. This game has the highest level of action in Final Fantasy. I recently played about two hours of the game to dive deeper into the combat system’s mechanics, and you can read my preview thoughts on that here. 

After playing the game I talked to Naoki Yoshida (FFXVI producer), Hiroshi Takai (director) and Ryota Suzuki (combat director). We discussed the shift towards deep action, as well as whether Final Fantasy will ever go back to its turn-based roots. These three developers had answers for me about why Final Fantasy is now so comfortable in action. 

Yoshida: “When creating FFXVI, you can’t ignore the data that’s been taken from the fan base, from Final Fantasy I to XV. 

It is now a huge undertaking to create a Final Fantasy. You need to get as many people as possible playing your game in order to recover the development cost. While many older Final Fantasy fans will be familiar with the game’s history, there are many younger players. [players]Never played Final Fantasy. Their parents grew up with first-person shooters and they have always loved Final Fantasy games. [Grand Theft Auto]You simply press a button to trigger something immediately. 

The system isn’t command-based. The square is pressed and your guy shoots. You don’t have to wait for your guy to shoot. I should just be able press square immediately and he will shoot. There is a whole gaming generation that was raised with this. [and you need]To get these generations in to play [FFXVI]It is a game that has the image of being a different type of game. It must appeal to them. And so to get that group to come in and introduce them to the series, we decided to go down this route – action was pretty much the only way.

Turn-based games were our favorite form of entertainment growing up. However, just imagining Clive standing there as like “revenge” [Yoshida posed like an angry and revenge-riddled Clive and said “revenge”]We don’t believe that standing still and doing nothing, is a good way to portray the character.

TakaiFor me it’s the exact same as [Yoshida]We want this game to be as accessible as possible. Like [Yoshida] said, a lot of gamers in their 20s, even some in the in the early 30s…are so used to playing games where if you you tilt the stick, someone moves. If you press the button, action happens – that is all immediate. You get immediate action and it’s responsive. So, trying to push this back [and make players]Wait for everything. I didn’t like the direction games were moving in.

Again, the game could be made turn-based. When you consider the high graphical quality and the realistic nature of the PlayStation 5 technology, a game that people stop and do nothing is not going to be believable is something we tried to avoid. This is because it’s very difficult to create a situation where two people are in the middle a battle and they just stare at one another, waiting for someone else to execute a command. It’s going be hard work and a very, very cool idea to make this work. That’s what I hope to pass on to the next generation.

So the ability system that we have with learning and using the Eikonic abilities and getting the Eikons, that’s something that actually we based off of Final Fantasy V’s ability system. For me, it was thinking back, ‘if we took the Final Fantasy V ability system and made it into something that was real time action, this is what it would look like’ and that was kind of that design concept.

To those players out there that are maybe kind of still on the fence thinking, ‘I don’t know if I want to play this because I’m a command user or a command-based, turn-based user type of person,’ I’d ask them to at least try it out once and see how it feels because we think you’ll change your mind on this as well.”

Suzuki: “Because it’s a decision that we believe we kind of had to make…because we know that there are players that will say that they…might not play XVI because it’s gone from turn-based to action, we have to look at that. However, you might also find players saying, “Well, if this is turn-based I don’t want to play it at all.” And so again, it’s all about bringing the game to a lot more people and with our action system that we have making it accessible, we think that we can get those players that are like, ‘I don’t know if I want to play this…action game,’ [but]We believe that because we are accessible, it could be a way for non-action gamer to get a sense of how enjoyable action games are.

Of course, turn-based gaming is something I like as well. We don’t want anyone to believe that all the developers of this game hate turn-based ones.

Yoshida thought about whether a Mainline Final Fantasy game would ever return to turn based combat. 

“We don’t know if our team is going to be doing Final Fantasy XVII,” he says. “I would say we’re probably not going to be doing XVII. But again, there’s still that possibility out there because…you never know; we might just go back to pixel graphics as well. If you do go back to pixel graphics, that makes it easier to go back to something turn-based.”