Told to "Please Stop," FF Creator Shares More AI Art

"No, Sakaguchi-san, please stop after the first line." That was Akitoshi Kawazu, creator of the SaGa series and a fellow Square veteran, responding publicly after Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi praised an AI-generated trailer imagining a hypothetical FF6 remake. Sakaguchi's answer to that rebuke, and to the broader wave of backlash that followed? Post more AI art.

Sakaguchi responded on X, expressing apparent surprise at the intensity of the reaction. "Whoa!? What a wild reaction lol," he wrote, in a translation provided by X. He went on to explain that he "intuitively sensed the potential" of the FF6 remake concept, adding: "It's not gonna work as-is, but it feels like there might be some intriguing stuff waiting down the line. That's the vibe." He then shared additional AI-generated concepts, this time tied to Lost Odyssey, the Xbox 360 RPG he created at Mistwalker, his independent studio founded in 2004.

The irony here is thick enough to cut with a Buster Sword. Sakaguchi built his legacy on human creativity. Final Fantasy's identity, from Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations to Nobuo Uematsu's scores, is inseparable from the artists who made it. Seeing the man who started that legacy enthusiastically amplify AI-generated content, and then double down when a peer and longtime colleague asks him to stop, is bizarre. "In the end, maybe it's just that I've barrelled through 40 years of work and private life powered purely by 'exciting things,'" Sakaguchi added. "That's the kinda guy I am, after all, lol."

I get that Sakaguchi isn't endorsing replacing artists with generative AI. His posts read more like a guy who saw something shiny and got excited about it without thinking through the implications. But that lack of awareness is part of the problem. When someone with his stature shares AI-generated game trailers approvingly, it gives ammunition to every executive already looking for reasons to cut art budgets. The context matters: Square Enix itself has publicly embraced AI integration, and consumers are already on edge about it. Sakaguchi walking into that minefield with a smile and a "lol" doesn't land the way he thinks it does.

Kawazu's Quiet Burn

Kawazu's response was arguably the most interesting part of this whole episode. Rather than just criticizing, he redirected the conversation toward what actually matters. He recounted chatting with an American tourist at a sushi restaurant who told him he loved FF6 and its characters, then added: "I do think 6 is definitely suited for a 3D remake." The subtext was clear. People want a real FF6 remake made by real people, not an AI-generated mood board. It was a polite but pointed correction from someone who has known Sakaguchi for decades, and the fact that Sakaguchi's response was to share even more AI content suggests the message didn't land.

Sakaguchi left Square Enix in 2003, and Mistwalker's most recent release was Fantasian. He's not in a position to greenlight or influence an FF6 remake. But his voice still carries enormous weight with fans and within the industry. That's exactly why this matters. Nobody needed the father of Final Fantasy to become an AI art evangelist, and the fact that a direct, public request from a respected colleague couldn't slow him down makes the whole situation feel less like a misunderstanding and more like a deliberate stance.

While all of this was playing out, Square Enix's actual Final Fantasy MMO was having a much better week. FF11 director Yoji Fujito told Famitsu that the game's player count has remained stable at a high level following crossover events and welcome-back campaigns. "We never saw the kind of sharp decline we had anticipated," Fujito said, according to a translation by Automaton. The team is even investigating whether technical limitations around area ID slots can be overcome to add new zones to the 24-year-old game. A franchise built by human hands, still thriving because of human work. Sakaguchi might want to sit with that for a minute.