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The producer of Final Fantasy 16 clarifies his previous statement that the franchise may drop numbered titles in future installments.
In a previous interview back in May, the producer of Final Fantasy 16 suggested that the Final Fantasy series might ditch numbered titles in the future. He was reported to have discussed dropping numbered parts for future games with Square Enix, though that would be out of his control. The interview also said that he understands why the numbering can be confusing for novice fans who might think they need to play other games to start the next one. Yoshida recently came out with the clarification that this is not what he said in an interview.
The producer of Final Fantasy 16 claims that he did not say he wanted to remove the numbers, although journalists suggested otherwise. Yoshida says he was asked if he thought about removing the number “16” from the game’s name, and claims he’s had that conversation before. However, this was twisted into the idea that he wants to remove them from future games, which is not true.
Yoshida further clarified by stating that if Final Fantasy were to remove its number from the titles, then they could be mistaken for a completely different game or spin-off of the long-running franchise, of which there are already many. Therefore, he believes that it does not make sense to remove numbers from Final Fantasy games.
In addition, Yoshida states that the fans themselves are also strongly attached to the legacy of Final Fantasy, and the numbers are also important to the identity of each game. He thinks it would be too difficult to remove the numbering from the main games, which is why the number “16” appears in the title of this game. He also couldn’t think of many game franchises with that many numbers in their titles, and The King of Fighters franchise is the only one he could remember that reached numbers as high as Final Fantasy. He was amused that his words were twisted in the first messages, but he was glad to clarify the situation.
