Final Fantasy 16 was announced

[MikkoAkure]

FF16 - Generic action/arcade combat where you don't get to choose when you summon your primals/eikons/whatevers. Also looks like you'll be playing a solo character instead of a party.
Pretty graphics.
Painfully uninspired combat that you can get in literally dozens of other titles.

What's this ridiculous compulsion to make Final Fantasy into all the other bland action/souls games out there? Bring back ATB, add some creative spin to it. Just stop with the lame action combat. Leave that for games like Assassin's Creed and Devil May Cry and the rest. Stop trying to be like everyone else.

What you described in your first paragraph is literally Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (minus pretty graphics) which is already a direction that Final Fantasy has gone into. If the recent forays into action combat didn’t sell well, the SE would probably be more inclined to change it up, but this looks to be the direction they’re going.

Turn-based gameplay is now considered “retro” and “niche” and I don’t think there’s been a AAA title in the past 15 years that used it. Smaller games with smaller budgets can get away with it, and that’s where you get Octopath Traveler and Persona 5. But it’s harder to justify as the development costs go up and you need to appeal to a larger demographic.

No one is being forced to play the latest generation of Final Fantasy. There’s no continuation of a previous game or anything so you won’t be missing anything. There’s other turn-based games still being made and they’re putting new creative spins on turn-based combat too, like Bravely Default and Radiant Historia. If you don’t like the direction they’ve been going in, then don’t give them your money.

[Shurrikhan]

What you described in your first paragraph is literally Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (minus pretty graphics) which is already a direction that Final Fantasy has gone into. If the recent forays into action combat didn’t sell well, the SE would probably be more inclined to change it up, but this looks to be the direction they’re going.

Turn-based gameplay is now considered “retro” and “niche” and I don’t think there’s been a AAA title in the past 15 years that used it.

Divinity II and Persona 5 are, again, rather far from small, low-budget games. They were both the full $60 on release. 3 years later, the collector's edition of Divinity 2 is still $90, and the base game $45. Its prequel, back when the studio was borderline indie had a budget of over 4.5 mil euros, but that seems a small fraction of D2's -- I haven't seen the exact numbers -- though the game's release quarter was apparently ridiculously profitable.

I get that you dislike Turn Based, but it's far from something games just "get away with". It's a system still being meaningfully reiterated upon, to great success.

[MikkoAkure]

Divinity II and Persona 5 are, again, rather far from small, low-budget games. They were both the full $60 on release. 3 years later, the collector's edition of Divinity 2 is still $90, and the base game $45. Its prequel, back when the studio was borderline indie had a budget of over 4.5 mil euros, but that seems a small fraction of D2's -- I haven't seen the exact numbers -- though the game's release quarter was apparently ridiculously profitable.

I get that you dislike Turn Based, but it's far from something games just "get away with". It's a system still being meaningfully reiterated upon, to great success.

I don't dislike turn-based. All the turn-based games I described are games that I own. I'm just being realistic. Persona 5 and Divinity 2 may not be small, low-budget games, but they're not AAA titles either. Neither one of those was made to compete for the average person's attention against other AAA titles like Assassin's Creed. That's why both games are considered "niche". They're aimed at a specific demographic (that likes turn-based RPGs and also anime or tabletop respectively) and budgeted with the size of the demographic in mind. Both games are not made with the same budget that goes into Final Fantasy games, which have always been aimed at a wider audience.

FFXV had to ship 5 million units to recover development costs and ended up selling 8.9 million copies as of October of last year. Persona 5 including Royal has sold 4.6 million copies worldwide as of July of this year. Persona 5 and Final Fantasy are in two different worlds when it comes to both budget and how much they expect to sell and shouldn't be compared.

[MeeDeggiThePunisher]

Turn-based gameplay is now considered “retro” and “niche” and I don’t think there’s been a AAA title in the past 15 years that used it.

What makes people think like this? What alternate universe are they living in? Or is a "I don't like it so it must be niche." situation?

[JohnSpawnVFX]

What makes people think like this? What alternate universe are they living in? Or is a "I don't like it so it must be niche." situation?

Considering that the PS1 was chock full of turn based RPGs, while PS4 turn based RPGs go nowhere in the vicinity of that figure, that seems like an accurate statement.

I'm a fan of turn based RPGs and I can still recognize that nowadays there are few and far between numbers of them, and that they are niche (maybe not retro though).

[MikkoAkure]

What makes people think like this? What alternate universe are they living in? Or is a "I don't like it so it must be niche." situation?

Like I said before... Not in any of my posts did I say I didn't like turn-based games. It's just not as popular anymore. There is nothing at all wrong with something being "niche", but the stigma around the term is why I used the term before with quotation marks. "Niche" games can and usually do have far more creativity than AAA games at the expense of focusing on a tighter demographic, which means lower development budget. If you don't like me calling turn-based games "niche" does "smaller target demographic" work for you? Final Fantasy is Square Enix's flagship series that they intend on using to compete against other AAA titles. Some suits in the business division must have decided that turn-based doesn't sell on a wide scale or that evolution in combat design is needed to stay competitive and expand beyond just RPG fans, and the games we've had in the past few decades have reflected that.

I play and enjoy turn-based games to this day and like most of them way more than some of the FF games we've been getting lately. The moral of the story I've been trying to get across is that there's a reason SE made the decision to do what they're doing. It's not that they don't care about their roots, they still make games that play like the old ones. But Final Fantasy is moving in a different direction to survive in the current gaming climate for better or for worse. Either way, you shouldn't limit yourself to just Final Fantasy when it comes to RPGs and that will just turn you into someone who narrow-mindedly focuses on "the good old days" of the series and complains whenever anything changes with it.

[Jandroid]

Turn-based gameplay is now considered “retro” and “niche” and I don’t think there’s been a AAA title in the past 15 years that used it. Smaller games with smaller budgets can get away with it, and that’s where you get Octopath Traveler and Persona 5. But it’s harder to justify as the development costs go up and you need to appeal to a larger demographic.

Dragon Quest XI did extremely well as a turn-based game though and people in Japan lined up for it at launch the same way people lined up for iPhones ten years ago. Dragon Quest is no niche product and it's the Enix flagship the same way Final Fantasy is the Square flagship. And although probably not a AAA title in terms of development, Pokémon also does really well despite being a turn-based RPG.

Although I would have definitely preferred a Turn-based RPG over an Action RPG, I don't mind the current direction Final Fantasy XVI is taking. However, as part of the "core-audience" otherwise known as a Western JRPG fan, I'd be lying if I say I wasn't getting burnt out by the excessive amount of action based combat that I've been playing. Final Fantasy XV, NieR:Automata, Monster Hunter: World, Dark Souls III, etc. were some of the biggest titles to come out in recent years and there's more on the way with Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Tales of Arise, Elden Ring, and the list goes on. The market for Action RPGs, or even traditional Action games, is oversaturated and I think Square Enix really could have capitalized on bringing back turn-based combat.