Right now, Final Fantasy XIV creative director Naoki Yoshida has to split his time between promoting the MMO and the upcoming mainline entry, Final Fantasy XVI. As one title coasts through its 10th anniversary, another is trying to establish its foothold in the fandom. You would think that working on both titles would be a vastly different experience, but according to Yoshida, it really isn’t.
“It’s probably not as different as you’d expect creating an ongoing [game like FFXIV] as well as a standalone game because for Final Fantasy XIV, if you look at the original A Realm Reborn and our expansions, they are all stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends,” Yoshida told GameInformer.
Instead of a vast journey with the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, FFXVI follows the trial and tribulations of Clive. The story is able to drill down and really give players a feeling of Clive’s struggles.
“If we wanted, we could put a hook in there that gets you excited for maybe future content or something like that. But again, that wasn’t our aim with Final Fantasy XVI,” he added. “We wanted to create a story that had a beginning and that also ended and so we did. We wanted to focus on [protagonist] Clive’s life and so rather than the story being broader, we are focused on him. That’s not to mean that it’s not as deep as well, because we are so focused that we get a deep look into the entirety of Clive’s life.”
Final Fantasy XVI is planned for release on June 22, 2023 for PlayStation 5. At the same time, FFXIV will probably have Patch 6.4 sometime in May or early June. That’s a lot for Yoshida to keep track of and hopefully our favorite producer will be able to relax soon. In the meantime, we wait for Patch 6.35, which will add the latest Deep Dungeon, Eureka Orthos.
