During his interview with Famitsu, Yoshi-P, producer and director of FFXIV, revealed his plans for future expansions, and a possible FF16 crossover!
During the Las Vegas Fan Festival, Naoki Yoshida (also known as Yoshi-P), the producer and director of Final Fantasy 14, has conducted multiple interviews with various media outlets, including one with Famitsu. In this interview, Yoshi-P answered many questions about the future of FF14, possible collaborations with other games, and his own personal goals. You can check out the full interview in Japanese on the Famitsu website, but we will break down some of the highlights for you here!
Future Expansions
Yoshi-P said he currently has two more ideas for future expansions after FF14 Dawntrail, which is scheduled to be released in Summer 2024.
He wishes to deliver at least three more expansions before he turns 60 years old. He turned 50 this year, so he has around 10 years to achieve this goal.
He also said that he did not create the FF14 story with the intention to connect everything up until Endwalker, the previous expansion. They just decided along the way to tie up the plot points one day, and intend to do the same with 7.0: whether the story starting with Dawntrail will be less large, or larger than the “Hydaelyn vs Zodiark ” arc, will only depend on the audience and if the storyline is a success or not.
Story Skip Option
Yoshi-P said they are considering allowing people to start with the FF14 story from 6.1 on. This would be similar to “starting a TV show from season 6”, as he described it.
He said it would still be more natural to start from 1.0, but they are looking into ways of implementing a system that would allow players to see the character, lore, and world set up from the start to patch 6.0. Then, they could skip everything until 6.0 and start the adventure at 6.1. He said this is still only an idea, nothing concrete yet. They are not sure if it will be implemented with 7.0 or not.
FF16 Crossover
Yoshi-P also announced that he finally had the chance to speak with Yoshida (Yes he did talk to Himself, as he is the producer of both games, but seems to love the joke), the producer of FF16, about a possible crossover between FF14 and FF16.
According to him, the meeting went well, but he could not give any detail or confirm anything just yet. However, it is clear that he is very interested in collaborating with FF16, as he is a fan of the game himself.
Classic FF Games in XIV
Yoshi-P said he liked the idea of playing classic FF games in XIV, but it would require a lot of work to implement.
It would also require getting permission from Square Enix and other developers to use their games in XIV as well, as they would also need to find a way to make them compatible with XIV’s system and interface.
Other Media Projects
Yoshi-P said they had a lot of talks with various people who were interested in creating FF14 media projects, such as TV shows, anime, movies, etc.
However, if any of these projects were to happen, he would want to be involved in some way. He admitted that he was very busy already with FF14 and other projects, so he would not be able to direct any of them himself at the moment.
He also added that there was nothing in the works for now, but he was open to possibilities in the future.
We hope you enjoyed this summary of Yoshi-P’s interview with Famitsu. If you want to learn more about FFXIV: Dawntrail and other news from the Fan Festival, stay tuned for more updates!