Final Fantasy 14 director and longtime Square Enix employee Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida has admitted the JRPG series' longer release interval is making it hard for younger players to connect with the series.
Square Enix has a lot on its hands with the Final Fantasy series alone, with the third and final entry in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy still in development and Final Fantasy 17 presumably in the very early, conceptual stages. That said, the most recent mainline installment, Final Fantasy 16, is already almost three years old without a follow-up in sight. Compare that to the two-year interval between Final Fantasy 7 and 8, and it's easy to see why Yoshida reckons the series is more popular with older crowds.
In a Square Enix YouTube video celebrating the release of mobile title Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy, Yoshida explains why he's hopeful the new game will attract both new and longtime fans.
"I'm 53 now, and I've been playing since Final Fantasy 1 in real time," Yoshida says. "But for younger generations – people who grew up naturally accustomed to action-based combat and online competitive play – the recent entries in the series may have been harder to engage with. Part of that is simply because I'm sorry to say . . . the release intervals for new titles have gotten longer, so some players haven't really had the chance to connect with the series the way older fans did."
Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy is the first new game in the free-to-play, mobile Dissidia series in eight years, a 3v3 team-based boss battler with a system "inspired by social media," something Yoshida hopes will bring back the young'uns.
"My hope is that both long-time Final Fantasy fans and those who love the characters themselves can enjoy this as a completely new kind of game," he says. "Especially for younger players – if this becomes a place where they can form a community, get excited together, and even discover the broader world of Final Fantasy – I think that would be amazing."
The issue of longer intervals between entries in video game series isn't unique to Final Fantasy, of course. It's been 15 years since The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, and The Elder Scrolls 6 doesn't even have a release window set. The new Fable game is coming out this fall, some 16 years after Fable 3, and GTA 6 is releasing this November about 13 years after GTA 5. In all of these cases, development cycles are far longer than before as both budgets and fan expectations swell. So, if Yoshida's theory is correct, all sorts of developers had better start making mobile games inspired by social media if they want to be cool with the kids.
