A recent Final Fantasy panel could be teasing the rumored Final Fantasy 17, with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi potentially involved in the project. Square Enix has not officially announced the next main game in the series after Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.
The beloved JRPG franchise has seen a wealth of major releases in recent years, both with remakes and brand-new games. The most recent main-series game officially launched in 2023, with Final Fantasy 16 introducing the war of Valisthea and the powerful Eikons. Final Fantasy has also seen a renaissance with its remakes between the ongoing Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy and smaller projects like Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. Now, a pair of popular Square Enix executives may have just given fans one of the first teasers about the seventeenth numbered entry in the franchise.
Naoki Hamaguchi May Be Working on Final Fantasy 17
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi and Final Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida, also known as Yoshi-P, dropped a teaser during the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fest. During a panel, Yoshida commented on frequent fan requests for Hamaguchi to act in a directorial role for Final Fantasy 17, joking about the possibility. Hamaguchi was hesitant to answer the question from his fellow producer, with Yoshi-P also discouraging Hamaguchi from speaking more on the topic. The exchange could potentially suggest that Naoki Hamaguchi has landed a major role on Final Fantasy 17, one that Square Enix is not yet ready to fully reveal.
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While the exchange could have been a simple joke between some of Square Enix’s most prolific figureheads, Hamaguchi already has an impressive track record with Square Enix. Hamaguchi has plenty of experience with the Final Fantasy franchise, first working on visual effects and real-time rendering for 2006’s Final Fantasy 12. He later worked extensively on the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy in a programming role, and stepped into a co-directorial position alongside franchise legend Tetsuya Nomura on Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Hamaguchi later became the sole director status on both Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.
The comments by Yoshida and Hamaguchi are among the first public acknowledgments of Final Fantasy 17 by Square Enix. In recent years, the studio has heavily focused on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy as its main new games. Final Fantasy 16, on the other hand, did not receive any post-release DLC after its launch in 2023, despite being a numbered main-series entry. Square Enix has not officially confirmed the existence of Final Fantasy 17, with more news about the game likely not coming until after the debut of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.
Final Fantasy fans may have gotten even more of a teaser about the future of the franchise during the same panel. Hamaguchi and Yoshida discussed the possibility of remakes of older games during a Q&A session, suggesting that future Final Fantasy remakes would likely be much grander in scale. Hamaguchi specifically mentioned games like Final Fantasy 6, FF8, and FF9 as being large enough games that they might require four or five individual games. Square Enix could have big things in store for the Final Fantasy franchise in the near future.