Even after the heat death of the universe, I'm convinced the internet will still be doing what it does best: posting cute cat videos and having debates about whether Final Fantasy should embrace turn-based combat again. The FF discourse is nothing new, but it's news this time because Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director has chimed in.
For anyone new to the Final Fantasy mines, you might not have known that the series cut its teeth as a turn-based JRPG behemoth. It's, of course, been well over a decade since those days, though. 2001's Final Fantasy 10 was the last mainline entry with a proper turn-based battle system before Square Enix experimented with MMOs (FF11, FF14), single-player MMO combat (FF12), pure real-time action (FF15, FF16, FF7R), and experimental hybrids (FF13).
"Been playing a lot of OG Final Fantasy and look I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't like but there's clearly the audience & desire for a more traditional FF experience," Larian Studios' publishing director Michael "Cromwelp" Douse recently tweeted. So much of an audience, in fact, that he thinks "there's at least 10 million units in it" and it would be "less expensive with higher sales potential."
Been playing a lot of OG Final Fantasy and look I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't like but there's clearly the audience & desire for a more traditional FF experience. There's at least 10 million units in it. Less expensive with higher sales potenial.July 9, 2025
"I think a genuinely 90 Metacritic turn-based Final Fantasy with an excellent original story & characters could pull 9-15 million in sales," he added. "You can make the combat system more dynamic (as has been done). That said, desire to build must lay with the developers themselves."
"Should all Final Fantasy be turn-based? No. Please don't stab me. I'm just saying if you want to make a lot of money and bring back the core heart of the franchise, now is a good shout."
In a follow-up tweet, Douse also said the recent Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a "perfect example of how a game in the genre can defy sales projections," which is unsurprising considering the French JRPG had everyone (rightly or wrongly) crossing their fingers for another traditional Final Fantasy. The discourse even reached Final Fantasy 14 lead Naoki Yoshida, who said the jury's still out on whether Final Fantasy 17 will go turn-based again.
