Final Fantasy’s Yoshinori Kitase has revealed how Star Wars inspired some character names and a game system.
Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series has inspired many games, including the recent Game of the Year winner (2025), Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The series has been around for close to 39 years now, and it seems to have an iconic inspiration of its own: none other than Star Wars.
Some Final Fantasy Names and Blitzball Were Inspired by Star Wars
During an interview with IGN, Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase revealed that Star Wars has been one of the inspirations for the franchise. Kitase said he was afraid to use anything from Star Wars for fear the franchise would be called a copy of the movies, so he avoided direct references.
However, he reveals that one inspiration was the names of some characters from Final Fantasy 6, and he ended up picking them directly from Star Wars: Biggs and Wedge. He said these names were an homage to the movies, and there was one more instance where Star Wars was an inspiration.
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Kitase reveals that in Final Fantasy X he had to create a game inside the fantasy setting, and he ended up using an idea from Star Wars Episode 1, where he not only sees a pod race, but also a sport being shown inside a fantasy context, and used this idea in the game.
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For more from Insider Gaming, read about Yoshinori Kitase not ruling out any more remakes for the Final Fantasy franchise. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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