In recent years, Square Enix has made a large, obvious shift towards producing action games. Its most notable global brand, Final Fantasy, has shifted strongly towards the action genre ever since Final Fantasy 15 came out in 2016. Final Fantasy has long been a turn-based RPG franchise, but it also picked up a distinct real-time element on top of its turns via a system of timers in Final Fantasy 4. This Active-Time Battle system went on to define the franchise for many years, but it seems like Square Enix is well-and-truly done with it for the foreseeable future. Final Fantasy 16 is the latest reinvention in a franchise already full of them; this time pushing FF towards a faster, more involved type of hack-and-slash gameplay. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 is also expected to continue using the action combat of its predecessor.
However, those entries are no longer the only major Square Enix or Final Fantasy action games on the horizon. Forspoken is also coming down the pipeline, and it looks to bring more open world action in the vein of FF15. However, a new challenger has thrown its hat into the ring. Rumors are going around and being corroborated about a new project called Final Fantasy Origin, an action game related to Final Fantasy 1 in some way. Team Ninja is said to be leading development, picking up where it left off with the recent Dissidia NT fighting game. If this rumor is true, it appears that, beyond a shadow of doubt, Square Enix has pivoted towards being a chiefly action game company.
Square Enix' History With Action Games
Formerly, Square Enix was the premiere publisher for turn-based JRPGs. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, along with plenty of other projects over the years like Chrono Trigger, have been leaders of the genre. Even today, Dragon Quest is serving itself well by holding on to its classic gameplay. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, long RPGs were considered the AAA games of the era. Squeezing that much play time and grand storytelling into a single cartridge or set of discs was considered impressive, and having great music, graphics, and gameplay to boot was the cherry on top.
At some point, however, something changed in Square Enix. Its Japanese studios started working on more action games around the time of the PlayStation 2. Now that technology was good enough to show all the crazy things heroes and villains were doing, Square Enix seemed to want players to feel those actions as well. It was a company very focused on presentation, after all. To that end, it started experimenting with side games like Dirge of Cerberus, The Bouncer, and Crisis Core. Between those and the rapidly expanding Kingdom Hearts series, Square Enix had started to build up its experience with action games quite quickly.
The Advent of Final Fantasy 15, 16, and 7 Remake
The public did not perceive Square's desire, however, until it was announced that the action game Final Fantasy Versus 13 had become Final Fantasy 15. This shift shocked many, and set the stage for the big games to follow it. Next Square Enix confidently transformed its famous PS1 megahit Final Fantasy 7 into a cinematic action game, and set the former Final Fantasy 15 staff loose on Forspoken, a new action title. At this point, with the re-emergence of Kingdom Hearts 3, all of Square Enix Japan's big AAA titles were action games.
And Square was far from done. Revealed within the past year, scant months after Final Fantasy 7 Remake released and Forspoken was announced as Project Athia, Final Fantasy 16 is FF's next installment. And, just like FF15 and 7R before it, this game is once again an action game. This time, it's taking very deliberate cues from hack-and-slash figurehead Devil May Cry, right up to cribbing a combat designer a little while before the game was announced to make sure the combat was on track. Square seems very serious about breaking into the action game genre in a big way, and it is perfectly willing to experiment on its biggest property to get there.
Final Fantasy Origin and the Future of Square Enix Action
This has never been clearer than the likely-sounding rumor of Final Fantasy Origin. Apparently developed by a mixture of the Dissidia NT team at Tecmo and a few Nioh developers, this ambitious-sounding title is looking to do something related, in structure or story, to Final Fantasy 1. Apparently, this will include Souls-like elements as well, but said elements and the general difficulty will be decreased compared to Nioh. It is very significant that Square Enix is entrusting what could amount to a remake of Final Fantasy 1 to the star action game team of another company. Indeed, it's quite bizarre that Square is even interested in this at all. It seems completely out of its wheelhouse — if it were not for all the comparable games the publisher is already putting out.
With this, it seems like Square Enix's intent for the future is clear: it wants to make big-budget action games, and save turn-based gameplay for smaller affairs and games specifically targeting niche JRPG fans. This is a surprising move, but by this point, it should not be unexpected at all. This shift has been happening for a long time, especially as Final Fantasy moved away from normal turn-based gameplay after FF10. While it's somewhat sad to see Final Fantasy stray from its routes, a core element of the series has always been reinvention between entries. Turn-based gameplay, or an FF7R-esque simulacrum of it, can still creep back in over time. For now though, Square Enix has Dragon Quest, Bravely Default 2, and various other budget titles, mobile games, and re-releases to satiate those fans. For the rest, Square wants to make sure that the pulse-pounding action promises in the old Active-Time Battle system to be felt by fans and newcomers around the world. By the look of things, Square Enix wants to make more action games.
Final Fantasy Origin is rumored to be in development for PC and PS5.