While Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is back working with Square Enix again after two decades, he says he won’t be revisiting his older games, instead focusing on games he enjoys as a player.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Sakaguchi said that he specifically doesn’t want to go back to any Final Fantasy games because he doesn’t want it to ruin Final Fantasy XIV for him. “If I take on the Final Fantasy brand again, I don’t know if I’ll be able to genuinely enjoy Final Fantasy XIV as much,” he said.
Sakaguchi starting playing the online MMO to do research for an event he was invited to, but then became enamored with the game. “It started off as a courtesy,” he said. “Now I almost live in Final Fantasy XIV.” It’s a sentiment that a lot of people agree with.
Yes, that might be a silly answer, but in all seriousness, what he meant is that he wants to approach game design as a “consumer rather than a creator.” He still engages with new Final Fantasy games, going so far as to call Final Fantasy XV his favorite game of 2016 in an interview with 4Gamer. He’s also quite famous among Final Fantasy XIV players, and said in 2023 that Final Fantasy XVI “truly made me feel that this is Final Fantasy” due to its sense of adventure.
The interview comes ahead of the release of Fantasian Neo Dimension, an “enhanced” version of his RPG Fantasian, which was an Apple Arcade exclusive when it launched in 2021. Neo Dimension, which was made in partnership with Square Enix and his company Mistwalker, will be out later this year on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
The move came as a surprise since Sakaguchi and Square Enix haven’t worked together in a number of years. While Sakaguchi began his game development career at the studio, working on games like Dragon Quest before making the first Final Fantasy and staying on until Final Fantasy X-2. After that, he founded Mistwalker, which developed games like Lost Odyssey and Terra Battle.