With Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII out this week, fans can turn put their excitement behind Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, the next Final Fantasy release from Square Enix.
At a recent interview session (via SGCafe), Square Enix Senior Executive Managing Officer Shinji Hashimoto was asked about the Remaster and whether the new 30-minute audio drama would lead into a possible Final Fantasy X-3:
That’s not really our intentions with including the audio episode.
Since we’re revisiting Final Fantasy X and X-2, which were released about 10 years ago, the series’ scenario writer Kazushige Nojima and character designer Tetsuya Nomura had a discussion and thought that the HD Remaster release would be a good opportunity for them to include this additional story episode [and expand upon the universe a little further].
But the audio episode’s inclusion wasn’t because we have any plans to develop a Final Fantasy X-3.
As for another possible HD re-release in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XII Game Director Yoshinori Kitase explained back in June that, if the FFX/X-2 HD Remaster is successful, it would lead to more HD Final Fantasy titles. During the interview with Hashimoto this week, he said:
At this moment, we do not have any plans [to release a HD remastered version of Final Fantasy XII]. But as Kitase-san has mentioned, if there are a lot of requests from the fans for a HD remastered version of Final Fantasy XII, we might consider it.
But with that said, at this moment there are no plans to do so.
So, it looks like we’ll just have to wait and see how big of a success the HD Remaster of FFX/X-2 is before finding out if Final Fantasy XII will get the HD treatment. Would you rather have Final Fantasy XII HD or Final Fantasy X-3?