Final Fantasy Resonance Director Says Turn-Based Combat is Back

Following the major reveal at last week's Nintendo Direct, Final Fantasy Resonance is quickly becoming a focal point for fans of classic role-playing games. As the development team makes the rounds to discuss the title, director Hiroto Furuya has shared his thoughts on why we are seeing a resurgence of turn-based combat in an industry that has spent years pushing toward real-time action.

Why Turn-Based Games Are Returning

For Furuya, the shift back to turn-based mechanics isn't just a corporate trend or a reaction to market data. Instead, he believes it comes down to a generational shift among developers. "I feel like a lot of us creators who had grown up playing turn-based games are now creating games ourselves," Furuya told IGN. "It feels like there's this general movement towards revisiting and potentially reassessing or reworking some of the experiences we personally had when we were younger."

Furuya points to recent industry successes like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Baldur's Gate 3 as proof that turn-based systems remain viable and desirable in the triple-A space. He notes that the desire to revisit these systems mirrors similar trends in anime and manga, where creators are often reimagining and remaking the stories that defined their own childhoods.

A Modern Take on Old-School Roots

While the industry has seen a push toward real-time combat in many flagship titles under the guise of "modernizing" for a broader audience, Final Fantasy Resonance aims to keep its roots firmly planted. The game utilizes an HD-2D art style to provide a modern visual polish to the classic JRPG structure.

Though the title is not a mainline entry, it offers a glimpse into what a large-scale project might look like if it stayed true to the turn-based heritage of the franchise. It joins an growing list of successful titles—including indie hits like Sea of Stars and Deltarune—that prove players are still eager for traditional mechanics when they are executed with modern sensibilities.

As Furuya puts it, the resurgence is a natural outcome of a new generation of developers taking the helm. For fans of the genre, the upcoming October 22, 2026 release represents a chance to see those classic inspirations brought to life on modern hardware.