Final Fantasy XIV is a theme park MMORPG that is intended to make fans of all Final Fantasy games happy. The latest expansion is inspired by Final Fantasy IX. Now the head of the MMORPG is asked about a remake.
What does Final Fantasy IX have to do with the MMORPG? Final Fantasy XIV is a theme park MMORPG in more ways than one. This means that there is a lot of different content to pass the time with:
One can:
On the other hand, the content of Final Fantasy XIV is also inspired by many other Final Fantasy games. The last expansion, Endwalker, was primarily influenced by Final Fantasy IV, the Stormblood Alliance Raid is based on Final Fantasy XII. The new expansion, Dawntrail, in turn, has many callbacks to Final Fantasy IX.
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What does Naoki Yoshida say about this? During gamescom 2024, colleagues from JP Games asked Naoki Yoshida whether, from a marketing perspective, they should have waited for a remake of the game with the Final Fantasy IX-inspired expansion.
This is his answer:
Our original concept for Final Fantasy XIV was that it would be a theme park for the Final Fantasy series, and that’s why we wanted to incorporate Final Fantasy IX into it. We never thought about weaving Final Fantasy IX into Final Fantasy XIV in the context of a Final Fantasy IX remake – we never thought about it in that commercial sense. Of course it makes sense to think about it that way, but we never did.
Naoki Yoshida in conversation with JP Games, 08.09.2024
Yoshida goes on to explain that they also have a lot of big fans of Final Fantasy IX on the MMORPG development team. The game is also very big. If the MMORPG team had to wait for the corresponding remake for each DLC, he believes it would be a very long time before there was an expansion inspired by Final Fantasy IX.
Finally, Yoshi-P wishes any potential team attempting a remake of Final Fantasy IX good luck in their endeavor.
What are Yoshi-P’s team’s current projects? Naoki Yoshida is still the director and producer of Final Fantasy XIV. He now also heads Creative Studio III.
In addition to the MMORPG XIV and its predecessor Final Fantasy XI, which are in constant development, the studio is currently working on the PC version of Final Fantasy 16, the latest title in the main series. It is currently unknown whether the team is currently working on other games.
Naoki Yoshida himself recently supported the founding father of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, in releasing his RPG Fantasian as Fantasian: Neo Dimension via Square Enix on Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbx Series X|S and Nintendo Switch.
For now, the focus of the Creative Studio III team will probably be on the 7.X patch series for Final Fantasy XIV. Dawntrail received mixed feedback from players, but players are now quite happy with the dungeons, for example: The head of Final Fantasy XIV was worried that the new dungeons would be too difficult – players say: “That’s exactly what makes it fun”