Some of the key developers behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have visited Square Enix's offices to meet with the Final Fantasy team. The confirmation came from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi, who posted a picture of the two groups posing with a Cloud Strife standee.
According to Hamaguchi-san, the two groups engaged in a 'creatively rich exchange of visions and ideas' during the meeting. This will no doubt fuel Final Fantasy fans' hopes that Square Enix might reconsider its stance on turn-based combat.
The most recent games in the franchise have effectively shunned the traditional combat system in favor of action-based combat, as seen in Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida famously said back in 2022 that the ever-improving realistic graphics was making it increasingly harder for some gamers to accept the inherently not-so-realistic nature of turn-based combat.
However, the success story of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 proves that wrong. Granted, Square Enix would have much higher sales targets for mainline Final Fantasy titles, and Sandfall Interactive's game doesn't use a traditional turn-based system anyway (dodges and parries are performed in real-time). Even so, it's obvious there is a market for this, as shown even by Baldur's Gate 3. Even though that was a Western cRPG, it still used turn-based combat mixed with fairly realistic graphics (perspective notwithstanding) to enormous acclaim.
Did Square Enix ask Sandfall Interactive for tips on how they made it work? Or, better yet, did they discuss a potential partnership on a new project? Co-development is all the rage nowadays throughout the gaming industry, so we wouldn't be surprised at all.
Of course, even if that were the case, it would be a long way from releasing. Nevertheless, it'll be interesting to see whether Square Enix eventually relents to fans to provide a new game with at least the option to play with turn-based fights.
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