The Last of Us, Fallout, Witcher and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners TV series brought more interest and sales to those franchises. Could SE do something like that without having it flop like The Spirits Within, Kingsglaive, or FFXV Brotherhood?

The only problem with doing that with FF is that every game is its own universe. Fallout for example was successful because after seeing the show people wanted to be in that world and so started playing the games. You simply can't do the same with FF as each game is a different universe and different kind of fantasy even. You could make a live action gow style for XVI for example and people could play the game, but it's not automatic they'll play the others. The smartest thing would be making an anime of XIV since it's an ongoing game and people can sink hours and money in it

In most cases they would have to do animation.

My forever delusional "fan pitch" is a live action FF6 TV series. I even wrote a pilot for it as a fun waste of my time. 

I think it could definitely work.

Well, here's the thing: apart from TLoU (a game specifically putting heavy emphasis on its storytelling right from the start), all those shows are about long-running, established settings. If I watch the Witcher TV show and then go check out the books and games, I'll find Gerald, and he'll be recognisable to me as the same dude.

Same with Edgerunners: the world of Cyberpunk is still the world of Cyberpunk, both in the TTRPG and the videogame. So if the show made me fall in love with that world, the games are obviously great. I watch the Fallout TV show, think the setting is rad as hell, and I go play the games and I'm greeted by the same setting no matter what, so I'm happy.

But Final Fantasy doesn't have that sort of stable, coherent setting: each numbered entry is a brand new world, a brand new story. And, sure, there are recurring themes and elements, and even an ineffable quality that makes Final Fantasy recognisable no matter how disparate each entry is...

But a show based on, say, FFXII, will only bring in fans of FFXII. They'll want more of Ivalice, they wouldn't really care much about the FF7 Remake. And, vice versa, making a show out of FF7 Remake will bring in fans for that particular installment, but there's no assurance they'll stick around for the other entries.

I won't say it's impossible, but here's something to consider: the games you listed all appeal to a far larger audience than FF does. TLoU sold 30 million copies. Witcher 3 sold 50 million. Cyberpunk and Fallout 4 both sold around 25 million copies.

FFVII, across it's entire 25-year lifetime and including the countless releases/ports/remasters across 5 generations of consoles, has sold 14 million. And at least a chunk of those sales have been from people that owned the game before for an older system. There's no good way to accurately say how many that is, but it's probably safe to say that the game hasn't actually reached the hands of 14 million different people.

You already mentioned that a live-action show would be a huge investment and take a lot of time. I'm not an expert on the making of shows like that, but I don't think the FF fanbase is probably large enough that any studio would risk putting resources into something that isn't a guaranteed money-maker. Now an anime would be less expensive, and could potentially work, after all we all know they were at least planning to do an FFIX anime, but I still don't think it would be nearly as big of a hit as the Edgerunners anime for example.

The thing is, is that those shows for those franchises were actually good. If we can take our FF rose tinted glasses off and judge Advent Children, The Spirits Within, Kingsglaive, etc. from the point of view of the average viewer, the plots in those movies kinda suck. Personally, I love anything FF and I loved those movies and the Brotherhood anime as well, but that's because I'm ALREADY an FF fan.

SE has a horrible track record at trying to introduce new fans to the franchise through other forms of media.

However, an HBO live action TV show of the FF7 events in Midgar (based on the OG, not the remake) with Mandalorian and Dune-esque cinematography is like my dream TV show. I think that would bring a lot of people in if done right.

This is where I learn i'm the only person who likes Kingsglaive

No, because there is no way they would let someone else write their stories/characters.

With the right production team, meaning not the same people making the games, then sure. There could be a good FF series or movie, and this could bring more attention to the game series. There really are a lot of issues to overcome though.

If it's a direct adaptation then the issue is the games are too long with much different pacing from TV and cinema. It would require a massive rewrite, pissing off the built in fan audience. If it's a side-story to an existing game, then you have a massive and bizarre world to explain to a new audience for likely little payoff other than being able to say it takes place in some FF game world. If it's an all-new world and story then you either have outsiders struggling to match the feeling of FF or you have the existing FF producers creating trash as they do every other time they venture outside of games and novels.

None of these are impossible to overcome, but it's certainly a risk. I mean, they have tried before. That everyone forgot about Final Fantasy Unlimited and they couldn't even properly finish the story speaks volumes.

My unrealistic fan-pitch that I know wouldn't work but I believe in it with all my heart is a Game of Thrones-ian take on Final Fantasy Tactics. Lean into the politics and then hit em with the cosmic/religious horror Lucavi.

There are probably like three of us who would be really invested, but I'd love it. Give me Wiegraf and Meliadoul on the TV, please.

Final fantasy has a lot of cringe. It translates ok sometimes to video games. It doesnt translate well to movies or tv.

Isn’t the ffix thing supposed to be for children? if it even exists anymore

The best candidate for a movie adaptation would be kingdom hearts, imo. Disney owns the ip and has the resources to finance and market the movie. Square gets paid for producing the movie. A wider audience gets introduced to square ip like final fantasy characters since the latter is already in kingdom hearts.

If square keeps thing simple and sticks to something like the kingdom hearts 1 plot, a kh movie could be a hit.

I think a show based on FFI's premise could be great.

Giving it some thought, the idea isn't completely bonkers. I think that the success in live action series like The Witcher and Fallout is how "grounded" and less reliant on magic they are. VFX is expensive and magic in media is always tough to portray. FF being the hyper magical fantasies they are, it becomes difficult to portray most of these stories. With most end game stories reaching levels of godly levels of magical duels, live action becomes extremely difficult to do right. Maybe doing a completely different story rather than doing a mainline game series would work best OR something in the Ivalice universe focused mostly on the war between nations rather than the espers/summons. I could see something like 12, tactics advance or even tactics being good "grounded" storylines to explore.

I just don't think it would work.

Final Fantasy is a series of games all vastly different from one another. Even basing a show, anime, or movie based off a game that is incredibly popular (Final Fantasy VII, of course) is no guarantee that it will be able to draw an audience.

Advent Children is a great film technically (and subjectively) but it didn't set the world on fire or necessarily draw on new people to be fans of the game or the Final Fantasy series. Same with Kingsglaive and FFXV Brotherhood.

I think Final Fantasy is struggling to get new fans and a film or similar media isn't going to help. I hate to say it, but they are being like a snake eating it's own tail. I also think they made a colossal mistake chasing after Sony and making Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth as console exclusives. It totally blocked off a larger audience that COULD have helped sales, especially given how action oriented FFXIV is.

I hope Square Enix can help turn Final Fantasy around. Because if we do have that day where we see the "final" Final Fantasy game, that will make this fan and countless others sad.

There were rumors of a XIV show floating around a few years back, but it probably didn't go anywhere. ULtimately I don't think its worth it, outside of Vana'diel, Ivalice and Eorzea, most of the games lack settings with enough detail to really do many original stories without heavy oversight from SE, and I frankly find simply retelling the games (unless it's NES era when you couldn't really do much actual writing) to be kind of a waste of an adaptation. I'm also not really interested in them fleshing out past events from the games, things like the War of the Magi(both 6 and 14s) should remain somewhat mysterious and ominous, Braska's pilgrimage should seem distant and larger than life though the stories we hear about it in game.

Open ended stuff like 1-3, they can do whatever with, prime examples being peak fiction SoP and Dissida.

"An FF anime should not be a completely new anthological story. It should be based within the universe of one of the FF titles and they should make it canon. Either a new story within that game's universe or a retelling of the game's plot in anime form."

Man I just could not disagree with that harder. That leads to a cultural cul-de-sac. The failure with previous non-game FF media was not their choice to tell a story in an original world. If anything, Spirits Within's world is its most successful element! The problem is they simply did a poor job and executed unevenly.

You want to make a great Final Fantasy anime, here's what you do:

1. Grab somebody like Studio Trigger that's staffed with a bunch of insanely talented nerds who would cut off their arms to work on a Final Fantasy show.

2. Grab some exec who came from a creative background like Yoshida to shepherd the project internally, and a game writer who's done some anime work.

3. Craft a cool, original world that can support a series, and write some scripts that don't suck and include moogles.

4. Throw a bunch of money at it until it's done and looks good.

5. Enjoy your success.

FF can't replicate those successes because of the fact that each game is different, this is an anthology series.

It's no guarantee that if FF7 is adapted to TV that people will play any of the other games other than FF7. FF7 is a safe bet, the Remake series is a good entry point for the casual audience but FF as a whole is not easy to get into. Just look at how many "Which game should I play first?" posts in here.

It's easier for Cyberpunk because we only have 1 game to sink our teeth into if we want more. It's easier for Fallout because all the games have a connected world. Last of Us is easier because it's the exact same plot as the show.

If there is to be an FF adaptation, TV or movie, it has to be based on none of the games. Create an entirely different world with different characters. Treat it like an actual FF game.

Make a FF14 anime in the style of the Korean TV ads, can do so much with that world and the story already plays very much like a TV series

In classic SE fashion they are making a FF9 anime..

For children.

I think they had both a FFIX animation about Vivi’s children and a amazon (? Correct me if im wrong) FFXIV live action recently axed

That Netflix movie was bad ass

FF XV brotherhood was actually good.

Absolutely not given their current position.

The Witcher show fucking SUCKS

FFXV did brotherhood and people weren’t happy with that. Same with the movie.

Each game is its own universe and I think gamers felt a lot was missing. Unless they address it in the game as well as in the movie? But that seems redundant

Instead of the FF8 remake some are clamoring for, that title would make for a much better movie or two. At least, I feel like the orphan twist in the game would have hit better in movie format, as well as other parts of the story.

They could and by what the new strategy has said they will.

I’ll admit I was turned off Cyberpunk 2077 because of its launch state and then I saw Edgerunners on a whim and it’s straight up one of the best modern cartoons (anime or otherwise) that I’ve seen. Combine that with Phantom Liberty releasing to very glowing reviews and the 2.0 update and I jumped straight into Cyberpunk 2077. In its current state I think it’s a top 5 modern day game and like a top 3 or top 2 RPG alongside Elden Ring.

So for me personally, Square Enix is going to need a show that’s on that level of quality and a game that’s on that level of quality. I think that’s a tough ask to hit both. At least in the case of the other three examples you gave those games were already beloved, but with FF I don’t think the community as a whole has felt that since FFX. It’s been 23 years of everyone disagreeing with some aspect of each game.

Another thing Square really needs to consider is being able to tell a story without making it a requirement for the game you’re playing. I feel like Square doesn’t believe in letting the spinoffs or the multimedia projects stand on their own. The shows you listed for example, two of them are direct adaptations, one of the game and one of the novels the game follows up on, the other two are stories unrelated to the games. You don’t need to watch Cyberpunk Edgerunners to understand 2077/Phantom Liberty. It tells its own story with no real relation to the events in the game. It’s a different squad with their own story.

The other problem with Final Fantasy though is that each game is its own thing. Which is fine, but locations don’t carry over the way they would with the other four examples. References for players are hard to incorporate when each game is an island to itself so is the adaptation an unrelated Final Fantasy series or is it specific to a new game? The only one I can really see working for this is probably FF14 since that game is a constant while FF17 will be distinct from what came before.

Edit - not saying I am not interested in a potential series, just that Final Fantasy as a series presents challenges that the other adaptations did not have to deal with.

Give me ferris wheel scene with Tifa and highwind scene in 4k and I'll make a shrine for hbo amazon or whoever would do this. Simple as

Square Enix has so many good IPs which could work very well as a Anime series and help boost the interest for the less popular series they have. It doesn't always have to be FF7 because this is already popular but i can see how giving other IPs they own a Anime series could help boost interest and sales across all IP related media, gaming, anime, books, toys, merchandise.

Have y'all seem Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children? It was cool. 

Last year they tried making anime series for Legend of Mana which coincide with the Legend of Mana remaster. The animation is good, but it just can't capture the magic of the game.

Other folks have brought up the disjointedness of the games and the issues that causes, and there’s only one thing I could see potentially working well. An animated anthology a la the Animatrix or Star Wars visions with 1 episode in each universe. It would kindof function like a sample platter so people could figure out what game and world they might want to explore further.

No, not for a western audience. The only exception is ffx

they definitely should license their IP out to someone sure.