Final Fantasy series "struggling" to adapt to industry trends, says Yoshi P

Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida has stated he believes the game series is "struggling" to adapt to industry trends and meet player expectations.

Speaking to Inverse, Yoshida discussed the future of the series.

"In terms of whether Final Fantasy is successfully adapting to industry trends, I believe the series is currently struggling," he said.

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"We're now at a point where we receive a wide variety of requests regarding the direction of our game design. To be honest, it'd be impossible to satisfy all those requests with a single title. My current impression is that all we can really do is create multiple games, and continue creating the best that we can at any given time."

Financially, Final Fantasy 14 is booming despite declining sales across Square Enix's output.

Yet the series remains the publisher's flagship title and there are plenty of games on the way for fans: Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, Final Fantasy 16, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth to name three.

Yoshida has also been candid about the forthcoming Final Fantasy 16, for which he is producer.

Back in June, he stated the game was returning to a classic fantasy setting to combat the "static" vision of recent games in the series and bring back older players.

He also discussed why the game won't be open world and how he hopes the action battle system will entice in new players, though there are systems in place to help players who don't excel at action games.

It's clear, then, that with Final Fantasy 16 Yoshida is aiming to please many fans of the series, despite this being a seemingly impossible task. Other games in the series - as well as other Square Enix games - may appease players instead.