Final Fantasy Deserves the Baldur’s Gate 3 Treatment

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 18, 2025 17 Views 7 Min Read
Final Fantasy Deserves the Baldur's Gate 3 Treatment



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Final Fantasy is a storied franchise that has stayed alive, in part, due to its ability to adapt. Being an anthology series without strict game-to-game continuity, Final Fantasy can range from steampunk, quasi-sci-fi stories like that of Final Fantasy 7, all the way to grimdark high fantasy, exemplified by the likes of Final Fantasy 16. This foundational versatility is reflected in the series’ ever-changing gameplay, which allows it to change alongside mainstream trends.

The first several mainline Final Fantasy titles are turn-based games, tasking players with nurturing a party of powerful warriors and using tactics, forethought, and on-the-fly planning to achieve success. As the franchise evolved, it traipsed into the realm of action-RPGs, with entries like Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core, and more recently, the Final Fantasy 7 remake saga, leveraging fast-paced, frenetic combat rather than a methodical turn-based formula. Final Fantasy 14 offers yet another spin on the series’ ever-shifting gameplay, leaning into the design pillars of traditional MMOs like World of Warcraft. Following the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, perhaps even another radical design shift should be submitted for consideration.

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Final Fantasy Could Be a Great Fit for the Baldur’s Gate 3 Style of CRPG Design

Baldur’s Gate 3 Proves that the CRPG Formula Can Achieve Mainstream Success

Over the next few years, it’s incredibly likely that the games industry will see the advent of the “BG3-like” game. Of course, Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t the first game to make use of turn-based CRPG mechanics, but it is certainly the most popular and commercially successful, making a strong case for the genre’s return to the mainstream. There’s nothing wrong with hard-hitting real-time combat ala Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but BG3 proves that its formula need not be relegated to the realm of niche or old-school RPGs.

Baldur’s Gate 3 prizes detail over scope, with each of its explorable areas acting like meticulously mapped-out dioramas, chock-full of interactive elements, loot, and NPCs to engage with. It’s rather unlike the AAA RPG formula of games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, or any number of big-budget open-world titles, which tend to focus on spectacle rather than interactivity. This makes exploration in Baldur’s Gate 3 a joy, but the same philosophy is present in its combat encounters, which are deliberate, tactical, and multifaceted, showing that a turn-based game can have just as much, if not more, freedom than a real-time one.

Baldur’s Gate 3‘s production value sets it apart from other CRPGs, which don’t often feature the same abundance of detailed in-engine cutscenes and character animations. This is something that Square Enix, with its sizable budget, could emulate.

How Final Fantasy Could Put Its Own Spin On Baldur’s Gate 3’s Formula

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a massive accomplishment for a number of reasons, with a major one being its successful recreation of the classic Dungeons and Dragons experience—as much as it can realistically be recreated in the video game medium, anyway. To this end, it is set within the D&D universe, with characters, locations, and mythological elements drawn directly from the storied tabletop RPG franchise. This works well for BG3, but the games that it inspires are sure to feature more original settings and premises.

It should go without saying that Final Fantasy would do a great job when it comes to this originality. Each new mainline FF game is at liberty to offer a radically distinct setting, tone, and narrative, so it would be easy to imagine a CRPG-influenced entry in the series honing in on that strength. Rather than medieval high-fantasy, a Final Fantasy CRPG could present a science-fiction setting, or a semi-modern one in the vein of Final Fantasy 15. This combination of franchise freedom and Square Enix’s abundance of talent and resources could make Final Fantasy and the CRPG genre a surprisingly good match.

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