Hironobu Sakaguchi is considered the “Father of Final Fantasy.” He may have left Square Enix, but he can’t get away from Final Fantasy 14. At the London Fan Fest he spoke about his relationship with the MMORPG.
The Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival took place in London from October 21st to 22nd, 2023. A lot of things were revealed there about the upcoming Dawntrail expansion. For example, the new job Viper was introduced, which wants to impress with lightning-fast attacks and a lot of damage.
There was also a conversation on site between Naoki Yoshida, the director of Final Fantasy 14, and Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the series and an enthusiastic MMORPG player.
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“Once I’m in a raid, I can’t attend any meetings”
What did the “Father of Final Fantasy” have to say? Sakaguchi admitted that the MMORPG was a real time waster, especially in the first few months. “I think I was in there for 12 hours every day,” he explained through a translator.
The legendary developer added that Final Fantasy 14 filled “about 80%” of his waking hours – 100% if he didn’t count eating time.
Sakaguchi documents his experiences in MMORPGs on X, formerly Twitter. Not only fans are following the 60-year-old’s adventures there, but also the Final Fantasy 14 development team, as Yoshida reported.
Although the “Father of Final Fantasy’s” expectations were initially rather low, two years later he can hardly get away from the MMORPG: “Now I can’t leave it. Final Fantasy 14 has become a part of my life.”
When Sakaguchi isn’t traveling around Eorzea, he also works as the founder and head of his own game development company, Mistwalker. In between, however, he seems to squeeze in time to gamble. He joked: “Once I’m in a raid, I can’t attend any meetings.”
That seems to have paid off, because Sakaguchi had a surprise in store for Yoshida: proof of his first successful Ultimate Raid. These raids are considered the heaviest content in the game and the race for world first is usually a big spectacle.
The Final Fantasy creator really wanted to complete an Ultimate Raid before attending the Fan Festival and achieved his goal 10 days before the event. As he revealed to Yoshida, he had a lot of fun doing it and wanted to try out other Ultimate Raids in the future.
69-year-old streamer faces difficult raid in Final Fantasy 14, creator of the series appears in the chat and cheers him on