On the sidelines of his presence at the Japan Expo trade fair, we were able to speak with Naoki Yoshida, director and producer of the famous online role-playing game Final Fantasy 14. Our interview.
The story of Final Fantasy 14 has all the makings of an adventure. The famous MMORPG (massively multiplayer role-playing game) from Square Enix launched in September 2010 received, upon its release, a strongly negative critical reception. A scandal for Yōichi Wada, president of Square Enix at the time, who was forced to publicly apologize to the player and declare that the release of Final Fantasy 14 has greatly damaged the brand image of the license.
Following this debacle, Square Enix put its all into one man to turn around its MMORPG: Naoki Yoshida. Mainly known at the time for his work on the “Dragon Quest” of which he directed three episodes, Yoshida managed in a few months to completely revise the Square Enix MMORPG for a re-release in August 2013. At the time, the stakes were immense: if the overhaul of Final Fantasy 14 is a failure, it is the very survival of the company that could be called into question.
The miracle has nevertheless been achieved: renamed “Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn“, the title received a generally good critical reception, and which will improve over the course of the expansions until it becomes today one of the most played MMORPGs in the world.
Special guest at the 25th edition of the Japan Expo trade fair in Paris, Naoki Yoshida took a few precious minutes of his time to answer some of our questions about Final Fantasy 14 and its latest expansion “Dawntrail” released on July 2, 2024. Discover our interview.
The latest expansion of Final Fantasy 14Dawntrail, has been out for several weeks now. What are your thoughts on the initial feedback from players about it?
“I think we’ve had the best launch in the history of MMORPGs, or at least the smoothest.”
The first thing that stuck in our craw when Endwalker was released (editor’s note: the last expansion released in December 2021) was the server problem at launch due to the massive influx of players. This even led to the game’s sales stopping completely, we had never seen that. Our primary objective for the release of Dawntrail was therefore to resolve this issue and reduce the queues for the expansion’s launch as much as possible. I think that with all our efforts and given the feedback from players, this objective has been achieved. I even think that we have achieved the best launch in the history of MMORPGs or at least the smoothest.
This also includes the big graphic overhaul you did on the game for Dawntrail?
This was the second major project on the sidelines of the expansion. This graphic overhaul had been desired for a long time, but when working on an MMORPG of this scale, such an overhaul represents a huge cost and a risk of ending up with a game full of bugs or with a result that is not up to par. But I think that we have generally succeeded in this objective even if I am aware that there are still bugs that we are still working on.
Could we also come back to the Dawntrail scenario? Opinions seem quite mixed around the latter.
Obviously, not everything is rosy in this new expansion. We received a lot of criticism on the scenario and in particular the beginning of this new story which would be too slow according to the opinion of many people. But on the other hand we received a lot of support from players who appreciated having a somewhat “holiday” episode, where everyone has time to discover the new cultures and characters set up for Dawntrail. It is therefore a very difficult exercise because these are half-white/half-black returns and we no longer know which foot to dance on. We will therefore collect all the opinions and try to find the right balance to satisfy all the players.
“We’ve received quite a bit of criticism about the main character of this expansion, Wuk Lamat.”
We have noticed that players who like difficulty and high-level dungeons have particularly disliked the Dawntrail scenario, which they say takes far too long. Conversely, more casual players who like to take their time to walk around and visit new locations seem to have really enjoyed discovering the new Tural region and the city of Tuliyollal. We will therefore potentially work on a new method for future scenarios by integrating more lore content into side quests rather than into the main story of the expansion.
And what about the characters in this expansion?
We received a lot of criticism about the main character of this expansion, Wuk Lamat. He is a character who is not without flaws and who, at the beginning, presents a lot of problems, including an inferiority complex compared to those around him. This drags out the story even more and, combined with this new more “relaxed” and “holiday” pace, makes many players feel cheated and feel that the story lacked “punch”.
But on the other hand, we have seen many players love this character who has trouble finding himself, but grows with the experiences he has. This quest for self, which I will not talk about further so as not to spoil the ending, seems to have pleased some players. But you, how did you feel about your experience on Dawntrail?
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I also have mixed feelings. The expansion seems to be developed in two distinct parts, but I found that each of them can satisfy a type of player that you mentioned earlier. A “holiday” part and a stakes part.
Thank you very much for your honest opinion. This is precisely the difficulty in presenting a whole new continent and a new story. But at the same time, to feel the game with stakes as you say, you must first understand where these stakes come from and this world that is still foreign to us by developing it beforehand. Unfortunately, this balance is complicated to find and we will do our best in the future to improve on this point.
In a recent interview, you said that you may have gone too far in reducing in-game stress. How do you manage to juggle content that rewards effort and content that doesn’t scare players away because of its difficulty?
This interview wasn’t really about this topic, but I understand what you’re saying and it reminds me of a funny anecdote. It was a few years ago now, during version 6.2 (released in August 2022) of Final Fantasy 14 I think. I came home from work and started the game in the evening – because yes, I play my own game. I wanted to do an expert dungeon and, for the first time, I fell asleep playing my own game!
“I’ve already fallen asleep playing my own game!”
You fell asleep while playing Final Fantasy 14 ?
That’s it. While I was doing this dungeon, I felt like I had already seen all of its mechanics elsewhere. My opinion may be biased, but I couldn’t stop feeling a certain blandness, a “routine” that had set in. So I told myself that, by reusing mechanics of challenge and difficulty for the players, we were losing originality since we were reusing a lot of ideas already seen in other dungeons or raids in the game. It lacked this idea of new and exciting things to discover. So the next day I asked the teams to imagine and propose ideas, each crazier than the last, to potentially integrate them into the game later.
But of course, when you create new content, you tend to equate it with difficulty. But by replaying this new content several times, I believe that you acquire a certain mastery. This is the dynamic that we have set up for Dawntrail and I look forward to you discovering our new ideas which are already numerous to spread out until update 7.3.
“Beyond fiction, I think that Final Fantasy 14 is mostly inspired by what happens in the real world.”
I still think that many players like difficult content that takes them out of the repetitive gameplay loops they can do every day. I would ideally like the mastery of difficult content to come from the help of the community. With the help of guides, advice or simply help with players.
During one of the Dawntrail expansion announcements, you almost became an internet meme by pushing back the expansion’s release date to allow people to enjoy the Elden Ring DLC that was released around the same time. Did that game inspire you for Dawntrail?
Not really. The extensions of Final Fantasy 14 are rather inspired by the base game itself that we simply extend little by little. More than other video games, I would say that Final Fantasy 14 is more inspired by media like manga, movies, novels or anime. But beyond fiction, I think that Final Fantasy 14 is mostly inspired by what happens in the real world.
During the press tour of Final Fantasy 16 (editor’s note: latest episode of the series directed by Naoki Yoshida)I had the feeling that the whole world was falling into gloom and that a kind of shadow was hanging over humanity in general. I had the impression that we were chaining bad news and situations around the world. But I thought that most of these situations could be resolved by discussions and it is this kind of thoughts that I wanted to integrate into Dawntrail. On the other hand, I cannot hide an inspiration of God of War And Game Of Thrones For Final Fantasy 16.
So you didn’t play Elden Ring ?
My team and I are all gamers. We love to see what’s going on next door and we’ve actually played Elden Ring. This title is fascinating in its approach to telling a story, but with very few elements and cutscenes. The fact of managing to create a whole world full of secrets without ever holding the player by the hand has inspired us a lot for our work. Finally, I will say that the last games in the series “Legend of Zelda” We have also been greatly affected in recent years.