Final Fantasy is a long running series at this point — it's easily one of the most storied franchises in gaming. But when you're up to the sixteenth mainline entry, you must start wondering whether fresh installments still have the power to pull new players in. Indeed, audience growth will be an important metric for the suits upstairs at Square Enix.
With Final Fantasy 16 being so different from its predecessors — it's essentially an out-and-out action game, in case you don't know — it's clear that the development team didn't want to be shackled to series tradition. And with that approach, you naturally start to gravitate towards attracting new players — people who have never necessarily been sold on Final Fantasy's more traditional gameplay.
Fortunately for Square Enix, it sounds like Final Fantasy 16 managed to accomplish that goal. Speaking in an interview with Push Square, DLC director Takeo Kujiraoka gave us some insight on the matter: "In recent years, players of the Final Fantasy series have tended to skew towards a higher age range. However, this time there are survey results showing that more people in their teens and 20s played Final Fantasy 16."
He continues: "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."
"This doesn’t mean that all future Final Fantasy games will take a similar direction to Final Fantasy 16," Kujiraoka clarifies, "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."
Again, opening such a dense franchise up to newcomers is never easy, but the desperate tale of Clive Rosfield seems to have resonated with a wider audience. It does leave us wondering how Square Enix will approach the inevitable Final Fantasy 17.
You can read our full interview with Kujiraoka-san by clicking through the link.