Final Fantasy 16 successfully expanded the series audience, says DLC director

Final Fantasy 16 successfully expanded the audience of the series, though future games won’t necessarily take a similar direction.

Ahead of the release of The Rising Tide DLC, its director Takeo Kujiraoka spoke to Push Square about the audience growth of Final Fantasy 16.

“In recent years, players of the Final Fantasy series have tended to skew towards a higher age range,” he said. “However, this time there are survey results showing that more people in their teens and 20s played Final Fantasy 16.

“I think this shows that, to a certain extent, we’ve achieved one of our initial goals – to have players of all ages play the latest Final Fantasy game.”

He clarified: “This doesn’t mean that all future Final Fantasy games will take a similar direction to Final Fantasy 16, but I do think it means that we’ve been able to bring new players on board and open new possibilities for the development teams that will work on future instalments in the series.”

This mirrors similar comments from producer Naoki Yoshida from before the game was released, to support the game’s action-RPG combat as opposed to the turn-based combat from earlier games in the series.

“I’m from a generation that grew up with command and turn-based RPGs,” said Yoshida back in July 2022. “I think I understand how interesting and immersive it can be. On the other hand, for the past decade or so, I’ve seen quite a number of opinions saying ‘I don’t understand the attraction of selecting commands in video games’.

“This opinion is only increasing, particularly with younger audiences who do not typically play RPGs.”

He continued: “It’s now common for gamers younger than me to love [action] games. As a result, it seems that it does not make sense to go through a command prompt, such as ‘Battle’, to make a decision during a battle.

“This is not an argument of what is good or bad, but there is a difference based on the player’s preferences and age. Furthermore, there is a big difference between a command system and a turn-based system, and these are often conflated, but are two different concepts.”

Final Fantasy 16’s action combat, designed by Ryota Suzuki following his work on Devil May Cry 5 and Dragon’s Dogma, certainly proved divisive. Some long term fans bemoaned the lack of tradition, while others welcomed the change.

These latest comments from Kujiraoka, however, seem to suggest Square Enix still achieved its goal – despite Final Fantasy 16’s sales not hitting the high end of expectations.

And while the ‘correct’ entry point for the long-running series is often debated by fans, Final Fantasy 16’s action combat and darker tone provide something of a series reset to entice new players. Indeed, despite bringing in a younger audience, the game was the first in the series to be rated Mature.

The game’s success also proves an interesting point of comparison with the more recent Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. That game – part of a remake trilogy of arguably the most popular in the series with a combat system that marries action and turn-based mechanics – has reportedly “underperformed sales-wise”.

The Rising Tide releases this week on 18th April and follows the story of the long-lost Eikon of Water, Leviathan. It’s part of the DLC expansion pass, which also includes Echoes of the Fallen.