Father of Final Fantasy has no plans to return to the series

After many years, the father of Final Fantasy has returned to work alongside Square Enix on a new project...but he's not returning to the best-selling franchise that he helped create.

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In 2003, after nearly two decades of making Final Fantasy games, Hironobu Sakaguchi shocked the gaming world by leaving Square Enix to start up his own studio. Since then, Sakaguchi's studio, Mistwalker, has released some pretty big hits in the RPG space, including the much-celebrated Lost Odyssey, and the innovative Xbox-published Blue Dragon.

Now Sakaguchi is working with Square Enix once more...albeit not in a direct capacity. Square Enix is publishing Mistwalker's latest game, Fantasian, to new platforms. Fantasian was originally released on Apple Arcade in 2022 to a limited audience. Now, however, Sakaguchi, Mistwalker, and Square Enix aim to launch the game on PC and consoles.

So it begs to question...now that Sakaguchi is once again close to Square Enix, could we ever see him return to the franchise? After all, Sakaguchi is a massive fan of Final Fantasy XIV, so much so that he tries to squeeze out as much gameplay as possible--even when there's important business meetings to attend to.

Alas, the Father of Final Fantasy wants to stay on the other side of the curtain. Instead of making the secret sauce behind the scenes, Sakaguchi is content with actually playing the games as a fan.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, the famed RPG creator expressed that he has no interest in returning to Final Fantasy or helping make a new game in the series. He also doesn't want to bring Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon to new platforms--those games will stay where they are, firmly in the past.

That being said, Sakaguchi's studio, Mistwalker, is still going strong...but he's firmly shut the door on the mega-hit decades-long franchise...at least as a creator.