Square Enix Should Enlist the Expedition 33 Team

A reader imagines what would happen if Sandfall Interactive made the next mainline
Final Fantasy
game and created a more old school experience.

It’s always sad when you feel yourself losing touch with something you used to love. Whether it’s a film series or a hobby, sometimes you grow out of the thing or sometimes it evolves in a way that no longer interests you. That’s where I am with Final Fantasy at the moment, at least in terms of the mainline games.

If I’m honest with myself, I haven’t truly enjoyed any of them since
Final Fantasy 12
and it’s only the surprisingly good
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
trilogy that hasn’t made me completely cynical about the whole series.

The final straw, so to speak, for me was
Final Fantasy 16
, which was the first one I actively hated and never finished. I do not want my Final Fantasy games to be some weird attempt to copy Games Of Thrones. These are Japanese games, and I’d like them to reflect that. If I wanted to play
The Witcher
3 I’d go ahead and do so, not put up with a bad copy.

It’s not even a question of whether 16 is a good game or not, it’s just not a Final Fantasy game, in my opinion. And what’s worse is that they’ve stripped so much out of what makes the series unique that I worry they’re going to go even further with the next one, so that it’s totally unrecognisable as being part of the franchise.

That’s why I’d like to see Sandfall Interactive, the people behind
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
, make the next Final Fantasy. I realise they’re not Japanese, but I feel we’d get a more authentic experience if we let them make Final Fantasy 17 then if we had Square Enix do it.

You’d get a game that had a strong Western influence, probably lots of new and original ideas, but also a team that appreciate the older Final Fantasy games. One of the reasons I love Expedition 33 is that it has an old school overworld map and turn-based battles. Square Enix would never do that and yet Expedition 33 will probably end up outselling Final Fantasy 16 in the end.

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