Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Hints
By Curt Hutson 25 December 2016
In an interview with Famitsu, Final Fantasy brand manager Shinji Hashimoto discusses the series’ upcoming 30th anniversary and teases more projects to be announced soon.
DualShockers reports that this week’s Famitsu included an interview with Shinji Hashimoto, brand manager for Final Fantasy, to talk about the 30th anniversary celebration for the series, which begins in 2017. He didn’t divulge very much, only mentioning the first event and then leaving the rest to the imagination, but he did confirm that more information would be announced soon.
To kick off the Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary, Square Enix will begin with an escape room game hosted in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, and Fukuoka. For those not familiar with escape room games, it is a team-based game in which players are taken to a real world location and asked to solve a series of puzzles, and often one overarching mystery, to escape. In this case, Hashimoto-san confirmed it will be a sixty minute mystery based on Final Fantasy XIV.
As for what’s on the agenda next, Hashimoto-san wasn’t explicit. He did, however, offer a tease for fans saying, “there are things that will be announced soon, so please look forward to it.” That doesn’t inspire too much excitement, but it’s expected given that the Final Fantasy anniversary hasn’t officially begun. These announcements will likely begin near the start of 2017, which is just around the corner.
The series’ past anniversary saw a number of remakes and ports. At the moment, Square Enix has one remake and one remaster in development, both of which could coincide nicely with the celebration. There is the remaster of Final Fantasy XII for PlayStation 4, and a complete remake of possibly the most popular game in the series Final Fantasy VII, which premiered its first teaser trailer last year at PSX 2015. Since then, it’s been revealed that the game will be released in episodes the size of full games.
There’s no word on whether the first episode of the Final Fantasy VII remake will make its debut in 2017 in time for the anniversary, but it’s likely. The game’s producer has stated that 2017 would be the earliest and that 2016 was, “a year of preparations” for the game.
The 20th anniversary for Final Fantasy included a PSP port of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy Tactics. It also included a full Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV, an international version of Final Fantasy XII, and the release of Dissidia Final Fantasy, a new game that went an an entirely new direction for the series.
There are still a quite a few titles in the Final Fantasy series that fans feel have been neglected lately and deserve some attention. Beloved entry Final Fantasy VI rarely gets any kind of special treatment; nor does Final Fantasy VIII or IX. Although a few have found ports on mobile devices with the bare minimum of enhancements, many fans would like full remakes.
They could get their wishes if these titles are on the schedule for the Final Fantasy 30th anniversary, or if the most recent rumors are to be believed, but at this moment nothing is concrete outside of what Hashimoto-san disclosed in his interview. Fans eager to join in on the festivities will likely have to wait until 2017 to learn how they can best celebrate 30 years of this RPG staple.
