There's a game called Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 that has a lot of critical acclaim and successful sales. One of the things that stood out about the game was its turn-based combat. Expedition 33 was inspired by games like Final Fantasy and Persona. I know that you said in the past that Final Fantasy XVI's more action-based combat was sort of a natural progression, or way of keeping up with modern gaming.
But with the success of Expedition 33, do you think that possibly mainline Final Fantasy games could go back to being turn-based, as that seems to be something that players have an appetite for?
With this question of turn-based versus action, it tends to isolate the gameplay to just the battle system. That doesn't take into account what kind of game the creators want to deliver to players. For example, based on a certain graphical quality we want to present to our players, or the narrative we want to deliver to our players, it relates to how we set up the game's systems around it. This includes the battle system, game design, and gameplay feel. It's not a clear-cut answer, whether it will become all turn-based, or if it's going to become more action-based.
[I'm] not necessarily going to be on
Final Fantasy 17, so we also don't want to obstruct or limit our future director or whomever will be producing the games like
17 or even
18. We don't want to put them on a rail