After the first full day of FINAL FANTASY XIV FAN FESTIVAL 2023-2024, the media present at the event were lucky enough to have a sit-down discussion with Naoki Yoshida, the producer and director for FINAL FANTASY XIV Online, to talk about the upcoming expansion DAWNTRAIL, ask about the game’s development process, and discuss ideas for potential future content (including playing older FINAL FANTASY titles inside of FINAL FANTASY XIV Online!), and more.

Here is a truncated (for now, at least!) summary of the panel discussion:

Famitsu: You mentioned the theme color for DAWNTRAIL is gold; could you tell us what kind of guidance you provided to Mr. Yoshitaka Amano when you asked him to create the illustrated logo?

Yoshida-san said that when they were discussing with Amano-san about the illustrated logo, he told Amano-san the theme was adventure, and that they want to capture that feeling of excitement about seeing uncharted territories as the Warriors of Light go by sea to the new continent. Plus, there is a major palace landmark in the area. Further, when Amano-san was working on the logo, he was working on it in black-and-white. They wanted Amano-san to create the illustration and then scan it in as digital data so that they didn’t lose the delicate elements of his work. The team then applied the gradiates afterwards. He further explained that he did tell Mr. Amano that the expansion’s theme color will be gold, and that he did ask him to include a rainbow in there. The FFXIV team also takes inspiration from Amano-san’s work too.

Sektor.sk: ENDWALKER brought an end to the story we’ve been following since the beginning of FFXIV. DAWNTRAIL starts a whole new story. Do you already have an idea of how vast this story will be and how many more expansions will develop it?

Yoshida-san explained that it wasn’t necessarily their intention to create one long, continuous story. What they do is foreshadow certain elements, and then try to tie up the loose ends through the successive expansions that are released. With DAWNTRAIL, they will continue doing that and whether the story from DAWNTRAIL goes on as long as the one between Hydaelyn and Zodiark did depends on player response. He said he also has enough ideas to fill two expansion packs, but he can’t tell what ideas he has at the current time.

Areajungones: Were you inspired by any specific cultures in the real world to create the regions featured in DAWNTRAIL?

Yoshida-san explained in a short answer: ‘Yes’, but he wants to keep it as a surprise for when they reveal more information at a later time.

IGN Brasil: What will be the features in DAWNTRAIL that will help old players to get back to the game or even bring new players to the adventures in this new area? How can they avoid getting lost in the current lore and get up-to-date to play DAWNTRAIL?

He said that this question gets asked whenever a new expansion is announced. He said that older content isn’t ‘old, old’, and they continually add new content to it and it is all very story-based. Plus, players can use NPCs to push through the story content instead of playing with other players. He compared it to a TV series as a season six that people can want to jump into, but he has made it so that the first season (presumably A Realm Reborn) is still relevant and so people should start with that.

Image courtesy of SQUARE ENIX.

GLHF: The way that Fan Fest rolls out development staff like rockstars is pretty unique, what do you and the development team feel like at events like Fan Fest, where you will so often be stopped and asked for photos, et cetera?

Yoshida-san said that they don’t necessarily treat developers like rock stars when they bring them out and that their job is to make games and not be rock stars. He believes that developers are not meant to be out in front like that and he sees comments on the livestreams commenting about his age and weight. He also said it was important to understand what the players want, the developers are making, and what the media is interested in reporting helps to create an understanding that keeps the game interesting and that allows them to keep updating the game.

He is flattered when people stop him and ask him for photos. He likes to accommodate as long as there is time, and people are fine with him being a middle-aged man. He talked about two photo experiences: at the first North American FAN FEST experience, he was picked up princess-style in one photograph, and in Japan, one girl asked to pick him up and ‘back drop’ him like in a wrestling-move. He finally did caution that there was a photo he once took with a Free Company that was uploaded to social channels, and everyone but his face was obscured. He asked people to show their faces and to show that they are having a good time.

Eurogamer Germany: Are any crossovers between FFXIV and FFXVI planned?

Yoshida explained that he is unable to divulge on it now, but they are hoping they can say within the calendar year.

Operation Rainfall: Patch 5.3, released on August 11, 2020, overhauled a lot of the main scenario quests and duties from A Real Reborn. Can you talk about what it was like revisiting that content and deciding what to keep, what to remove, and what to revise? Is there content you wish you would have kept after all?

Yoshida-san explained that there wasn’t anything he wishes he could have kept after all. He explained that when they were shaving down the content, there were multiple ways to assess what should be removed: First, they researched what content players decided to drop out of and then pinpoint that. Second, there were quests the development team felt they had done too much on and wanted to rein it back. Finally, they looked at the different NPCs, the quests they gave and their role with the lore. Based upon that, they would decide what NPCs could go away, and that was the hardest task.

Easy Allies: Would you consider implementing cross-regional Data Center visiting, or even a cross-regional Data Center Duty Finder queue system?

The technical aspects of being able to travel between the different data centers is built, but they want to spend more time figuring out if it is okay to open the ‘floodgates’ for everyone to intermingle because they don’t have enough information to see how intra-data center is utilized. Yoshida-san said he has had many discussions with his server engineer about how to make it work, including recently, and they keep having to have more meetings to discuss it. They don’t want to give up on the idea.

Frandroid.com: After Variant and Criterion Dungeons, do you plan on working on more 4-player endgame content like this? What was the feedback so far and does it mean we won’t have new 72 players content in the future (big fan of Bozja here)?

Yoshida-san explained that they would like to continue releasing more content in that format, and they will listen to feedback to reflect into the game. They still want to enhance the content they are offering in Variant/Criterion dungeons, and they will implement more content in that kind of format. As for content like Bozja and Eureka, they still want to do content like that and they will continue to come up with new challenges.

Image courtesy of SQUARE ENIX.

MMOS.com: Ideally, I’d love to buy FINAL FANTASY I and put it in an Arcade cabinet in my house. Being able to put the first few FINAL FANTASY games in FINAL FANTASY XIV would be amazing, even if it was in the cash shop only. Can we ever expect something like this?

Yoshida-san said that they’ve been trying to attempt this since a year-and-a-half ago. With the FINAL FANTASY Pixel Remaster series, they thought it would be cool to play it in your estate or at the Gold Saucer, and they’ve tested it out. They realized that the Pixel Remaster games are playing on a ‘middleware’, and they would have to build another system inside of FINAL FANTASY XIV Online to play the middleware to play FINAL FANTASY Pixel Remaster. He half-jokingly, half-seriously, asked for a ‘super programmer’ who can build Pixel Remaster in FINAL FANTASY XIV Online to apply to SQUARE ENIX Japan to build this.

He explained that FINAL FANTASY XIV Online is like a ‘theme park’ for FINAL FANTASY games, and so he would like to include it. Finally, he said the question stated ‘paid shop only’, and he didn’t want to be called out later on for why it was on the Mogstation. He said that maybe they could consider that FINAL FANTASY I-III COULD be free, but they can’t give everything away for free.

Inverse: Have you thought about expanding FFXIV into other mediums, like anime or a TV series? Would you like to see that personally?

Yoshida-san stated that if he is allowed to be the overall supervisor/director, then he would love to have a FINAL FANTASY XIV Online television series. He explained that he is the producer/director of FINAL FANTASY XIV Online, he is the head of Creative Business Unit Division III, and a SQUARE ENIX board member, and he doesn’t think that he can also direct a TV series.

He said they are ‘quite open’ to offers from other parties to do a spin-off movie, anime, or TV series. Interestingly, he said they have been approached in the past, but due to the pandemic, nothing has been followed through to ‘concrete’ discussions.

He said he is concerned that if a project is approved, it won’t destroy the image the players have of FINAL FANTASY XIV Online and he wants to ensure that it is of high quality.

Are you excited about the upcoming DAWNTRAIL expansion?

What do you hope to see announced at the live Letter from the Producer this morning on Day 2 of the FINAL FANTASY XIV FAN FESTIVAL 2023-2024?

Let us know in the comments below, and in the meantime be sure to check out my FINAL FANTASY XIV Online cooking series: Cooking Eorzea!