Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi responds to the backlash after shouting out a Final Fantasy 6 AI mock-up that went viral for all the wrong reasons

An unofficially-prompted and AI-generated Final Fantasy 6 remake recently caught the attention of Hironobu Sakaguchi, genre icon and series grandfather, who has now responded to the inevitable backlash from fans.

Final Fantasy 6 is one of the most iconic entries in a series full of iconic entries, so it's no surprise that what looked like a 3D fan-made remake of the game (until you spot the Gen AI mannerisms) went as viral as a regional flu on social media, even reaching original series mastermind Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was pretty wowed by the mock-up.

As you could imagine, the backlash to his endorsement wasn't far behind and fellow genre veteran Akitoshi Kawazu (of SaGa, Final Fantasy fame) even chimed in to tell Sakaguchi to take it easy.

The Final Fantasy creator has now reacted to the reactions to his initial reaction, tweeting that he only responded to the AI clip instinctually. He says the tech probably isn't going to work as-is, though there might be potential for it down the line, and he's spent the last 40 years of his career fuelled by wanting to explore exciting new ideas, perhaps explaining his original knee-jerk tweet.

Confusingly, Sakaguchi also shared that he recently toyed with animating concept art from Lost Odyssey, the cult classic Xbox 360 JRPG that's a brilliant Final Fantasy successor in all but name. It's unclear if he animated the game's art work using Gen AI or not, however, but you can take a peak at it in the tweet above.

Generative AI's use in game development has been and remains a hot topic with detractors worried about 'slop' glooping onto their games, as well as the ethical and environmental questions that its use raises, while fans of the tech argue for its supposed efficiency.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi had a slightly different stance. When we spoke to him late last year, here's what he said about using AI to make games: "I would like to think, as a creator and as part of my creative team, that however much AI might try and intrude and take part in the creative side of things, as humans, as my team, we would want to be good enough creators that we can could do better than AI, and we're definitely going to push that."

Final Fantasy 7 Remake had "no option other than a trilogy," lead says, since the "sheer volume" of the original PS1 JRPG was too absurd