While I have issues with this guy too, he's saying the exact same things that a lot of other industry analysts have said over the past couple weeks as the situation has become more clear, and SE has also straight up said some of what is being covered, so it's not really worth shooting the messenger this time.
A potential theoretical FF live service game wouldn't even need to be multiplayer to find success. Honkai Star Rail has almost no multiplayer (it just has a friends list and the ability to rent another player's character temporarily for farmable content), and Genshin's multiplayer is similarly completely optional (and most of the fanbase there only ever uses it to do random pic/video-worthy shit with friends and strangers, or to briefly circumvent time gated stuff when a new character releases).
I'd argue that nowadays, forced multiplayer is actually a big turn-off for the crowd that got into Genshin and HSR. Before both games entered the gacha market, most gachas had some form of competitive leaderboard aspect in order to bait people into pulling more and more to keep up with the 'multiplayer meta', but Genshin and HSR still ended up much more successful without that aspect and going all in towards a more compelling single player direction instead.
It's why I envision a FF game that goes all in on exploration, especially with airship travel being a key part of it too. A gameplay loop focusing on exploring and continuously building up your party + designing and upgrading your airship to explore into more dangerous territory is the type of game that would be easier to justify frequent new content updates.
The multiplayer aspect just seems like something that could catch on if done well, but some form of long-term support to stretch the legs of the game out for a few more years while also keeping the playerbase engaged seems like an obvious route for the franchise to head in if they worry about long dev times. I even agree that forced MP content could be a turn off. It's one of the things I personally love about Granblue Relink; I don't feel at all obligated to play with other players, and I solo run all the content that game has to offer. That game found a great gameplay loop that kept me going longer than I thought it would, and I think that kind of retention is what could help this franchise moving forward. If it goes the route of HSR and Genshin where its literally just extra content with new missions/content/areas, fine by me, but I think it needs SOMETHING while not compromising on the single player experience.
If they were to use FFXVI as a template, it might be wise for them to abandon more of the character action elements of the system. I think that's the part that holds it back, while character action fans feel that the combat is not complex enough. So you end up not pleasing both sides of the fence.
The break glass part was something said by fans who think that Square can just conjure an FF7 remake quickly, not Square Enix. There's no such thing as a emergency button that can save a game company when games takes years to make.
I think they can get back to the roots if they want to. 4 warriors of light and 4 crystals. Go from there. Make it big budget Bravely Default.
I agree to an extent on moving away from making it AS actiony/mechanically deep. If they were to work off of XVI, I fully expect that they'd need to build off by splitting all those kinds of ability and utilities that Clive gets with each Eikon into separate characters/jobs. They can still keep it action based since that game feels great to play, and just work on building 6-8 diverse jobs that maybe borrow from both XIV jobs and the utility from some of the Eikons in XVI, and just try to make each job feel a bit deeper to accommodate the loss of something like 3 Eikon skill switching. If each job felt as deep and unique as say, weapon types from Monster Hunter, with special skills added in for magics and weapon abilities like Granblue Relink, the loss of "Eikon switching" or something similar wouldn't be missed as much, especially if they can manage character switching amongst a party of 3 or 4(that would seem like a tall order).
I think they'd also IDEALLY go and improve the general world flow so that exploration is... Actually a thing next time round, and really go all in on things like side dungeons spread throughout regions with unique biomes, ala Dragons Dogma 2/Elden Ring/Tears of the Kingdom. Doesn't even need to be a sand box open world like those, I think they could easily get away with making it closer to something like FFXIV with an interconnected world, but expanded on for the modern AAA game so it just "feels" bigger, cause that game handled it perfectly, and they should try to build off that.
From there, the can add hunts monthly with new monsters, work on FF collabs(like XIV does) with unique fights, make "expansions" with new dungeons to play through either solo or in a queue, and even add fun side content like home building or something.
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