Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio director Katsura Hashino claims Japanese role-playing games — often categorized as JRPGs — are entering a new age, dubbing the resurgence as JRPG “3.0.”
Speaking at the Korean G-Star 2025 gaming conference (as reported by 4gamer and translated by GamesRadar+), Hashino suggested that the foundational RPGs — think “true classics” like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, although Hashinon did not mention specific games — form JRPG 1.0, the current crop of games with their “current style, which feels higher quality due to how much more responsive they are to the player,” are JRPG 2.0. And JRPG 3.0 signifies the role-playing games coming in the future.
Reflecting on the JRPG games still to come, Hashino said, “There will be a greater dimension to these games, and they’ll change the genre’s structure and presentation at a fundamental level.”
One of the big talking points around JRPGs revolves around combat, specifically if games like Final Fantasy should return to the turn-based combat of old. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 co-director Naoki Hamaguchi recently reflected on features like turn-based combat following the huge success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which boasts traditional JRPG-inspired turn-based combat, saying: “If you would ask me, ‘Is [my next game] going to be an RPG?,’ yes, there is definitely a possibility. But is it going to be a turn-based RPG? We’re taking this aside from the fact that Expedition 33 was received well, we received a lot of ‘JRPGs are back’ comments. For me, I’m thinking about what game experience fans will enjoy. That’s the most important point.”
In July, Naoki Yoshida, the director/producer of Final Fantasy 14 and producer of Final Fantasy 16, was asked in an interview with AnimeNewsNetwork whether mainline Final Fantasy games could go back to being turn-based, in the wake of Clair Obscur’s success.
“With this question of turn-based versus action, it tends to isolate the gameplay to just the battle system,” said Yoshida. “That doesn’t take into account what kind of game the creators want to deliver to players. For example, based on a certain graphical quality we want to present to our players, or the narrative we want to deliver to our players, it relates to how we set up the game’s systems around it. This includes the battle system, game design, and gameplay feel. It’s not a clear-cut answer, whether it will become all turn-based, or if it’s going to become more action-based.
“[I’m] not necessarily going to be on Final Fantasy 17, so we also don’t want to obstruct or limit our future director or whomever will be producing the games like 17 or even 18,” Yoshida continued. “We don’t want to put them on a rail.”
It later emerged that several members of the Clair Obscur team had recently visited Square Enix’s offices and met with some of the development leads there, including Hamaguchi and Visions of Mana director Ryosuke Yoshida. In a social post, Hamaguchi described it as a “creatively rich exchange of visions and ideas.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has sold five million copies in five months, making it one of the biggest hits of the year. It also received a record-breaking 12 nominations at this year’s The Game Awards, and is up for Best Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, Best Audio, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Independent Game, and Best RPG, as well as the ceremony’s coveted Game of the Year gong. Three of its performers are also up for Best Performance.
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Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
