Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida, best known as the director and producer of Final Fantasy 14, thinks the long gap between new Final Fantasy games has kept younger players away from the series. Whatever the reasons why, market analysis of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's demographics backs up Yoshida's assertion that the Final Fantasy fandom is trending ever older.
"According to Circana's PlayerPulse, 62% of US players of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth were aged 35 or older," Mat Piscatella, senior director at Circana, says on Bluesky. "That number goes to 77% if you go 30+."
Circana's data, again, only applies to the US, but it's a notable trend in one of the largest video game markets in the world, and it backs up Yoshida's point about the demographics of Final Fantasy fans. To an extent, that's to be expected, since Final Fantasy is a nearly 40-year-old series that arguably reached its peak at the turn of the century. But other big historical franchises – I'm looking at you in particular, Zelda – have managed to reinvent themselves and feel fresh for multiple generations of players.
Yoshida has some hope that Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy, a free-to-play 3v3 mobile game "inspired by social media," will help bring younger players in, but I can't help but feel that's a pretty fundamental misread of the situation. Sure, maybe somebody who enjoys both mobile PvP games and single-player RPGs will play the new Dissidia and decide to try Final Fantasy 16 afterward, but it's tough to imagine that crossover audience being very large.
According to Circana's PlayerPulse, 62% of US players of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth were aged 35 or older. That number goes to 77% if you go 30+.www.gamesradar.com/games/final-...
— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-03-23T16:11:43.779Z
The younger generation of gamers, in Yoshida's mind, encompasses "people who grew up naturally accustomed to action-based combat and online competitive play," and if that's how the generational divide is framed within Square Enix, it's easy to see why the series continues to focus on action-oriented combat in mainline entries and non-RPG genres in its spin-offs.
Personally? I think Final Fantasy's failure to cater to its original generation of fans is harming its ability to stay relevant with the younger set. We saw what happened with wild success stories like Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – they tripled down on old-school tastes to build RPGs so wonderful that the core audience of genre fans couldn't help but evangelize them to the world.
Final Fantasy, meanwhile, has explicitly tried to court new players by casting the expectations of the older generations aside. There's something to be said for boldly reinventing older series, but clearly Square Enix's reinventions of its flagship series haven't had the intended effects.
Whatever your age, the best Final Fantasy games are worth spending your time with.
