“First and foremost,” Naoki Yoshida says, via his interpreter. I’ve barely managed to sit down and press record on my dictaphone. “I’d like to say thank you for joining us at Final Fantasy 14 on the first day of Gamescom, right at the start. I’m sure you’re extremely busy so I really appreciate your time.”
He’s not wrong – it’s 10am on the first business day at Naoki Yoshida [150 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/people/naoki-yoshida/”>Yoshi-P – is often acknowledged for.
In a world where reports of players turning against developers are becoming sadly commonplace, Yoshida has built a reputation as one of the most approachable and authentic directors, due to his frequent communication with Final Fantasy 14’s playerbase. The general consensus among players is that even when the game goes in a direction they may not personally like, it’s still hard to dislike the man in charge.
As I sit down with Yoshida, it’s been a mere matter of hours since Gamescom’s Opening Night Live show, where it was revealed that Final Fantasy 14 and Monster Hunter Wilds would be crossing over into each other’s worlds, with special collaborative DLC coming to each game.
It’s an obvious place to start, but soon the conversation moves on to the game’s player base, a tease about a PlayStation 3 [1,041 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/ps3/”>PlayStation 3 and 
Let’s start with the news about the Final Fantasy 14 and Square Enix [967 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/square-enix/”>Square Enix approach PlayStation Portable [264 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/psp/”>PSP, when Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (Monster Hunter Freedom Unite) was released. At that time I talked with the producer and the director, and we used to talk a lot, just about how things were in the games industry.
So because we had that existing relationship, when I came over to the Final Fantasy 14 team, the guys at Capcom very kindly said: ‘Yoshida-san, since you’re now in charge of Final Fantasy 14, it would be great if we could sort out some sort of a collaboration between Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy 14. And the eventual result was the previous crossover collaboration that we had, which was with Monster Hunter World.
After that crossover collaboration finished, the team at Capcom told us that it was so much fun and it would be great if we could get another opportunity to do it again. And it just turns out that at Gamescom last year, I met up with some of those Capcom developers at night, and we went out drinking together.
They told me that since it was so much fun last time, it would be great if we could do something really big again. And so we talked about the possibility and I said: ‘Okay, if you’re interested in it, then let’s do it.’
And so, really, all of the planning for this crossover collaboration started just one year ago at Gamescom last year.
Because the Final Fantasy series is so narrative-heavy, a lot of the fanbase cares deeply about its storyline. Do you ever worry that with crossovers like this, some of them might take it too seriously and think ‘wait a minute, this isn’t part of the lore’ or something like that?
So, I’ll start with the conclusion first. All of the Final Fantasy 14 players and all of our fans are extremely positive. This applies not only to Final Fantasy 14, but throughout the Final Fantasy series.
We have a convenient possibility which lies behind this thing which we call the Interdimensional Rift, and that serves as a door of sorts where different worlds can connect together, and it provides the possibility of bringing those elements into the story.
This time too, for our crossover, we have been working on addressing each of the reasons why the Palico comes into the world of Final Fantasy 14, and also the elements which you saw in the trailer, why they are presenting themselves in Final Fantasy 14 and how that connects with the story.
We’ve been putting in a lot of hard work to present this narrative in the crossover content, and I think all of our fans are really looking forward to experiencing that and discovering it for themselves.
In terms of the content in Final Fantasy 14, all of the lines from the Palico have been reviewed by the main writer for Monster Hunter at Capcom. Also, for our Final Fantasy 14 content which will be in Monster Hunter Wild – that’s the Omega Planetes and the setting for Omega Planetes, and all of the lines of dialogue on the Monster Hunter Wild side – our team has also been reviewing and supervising for that as well.
So both of these elements are official stories which will be implemented in the games, and I hope that players will look forward to them.
We’re coming up for the 12th anniversary of Final Fantasy 14, in its A Realm Reborn version [the day this article was published]. As time goes on, does it get harder juggling the needs of the existing player base by adding new features, while also making sure that it doesn’t become too overwhelming for new players?
The Final Fantasy series has been evolving ever since the very beginning. Final Fantasy 2 didn’t have XP in it, for example. It feels like in recent years, there seems to be more backlash when new mechanics are introduced – making 14 online, making 15 open-world, making 16 a dark fantasy action game. I wonder if you believe that maybe Final Fantasy games [327 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/final-fantasy-games/”>Final Fantasy games then they wouldn’t have been developed, and the reason is that because it’s a Final Fantasy there are so many resources and costs, and quality assurance and efforts put into producing a title of that scope. Also, Mr Sakaguchi, who was the founding father of the series, said you have to take on a challenge for it to be Final Fantasy. We learned that from him, and so because of that I’ve never once felt that things would be different if it didn’t have Final Fantasy in the title. But, as you mentioned, Final Fantasy is a long-lasting franchise and now we have many, many players across the globe, so a lot of different players will have their own preferences on what they say is their favourite Final Fantasy. Some might say 7, others would say 14, others would say 16 and even other players would say 10. So I think Final Fantasy is unique in that because it’s so long-standing there are so many different titles in the franchise. And so when we develop a Final Fantasy and release it as the latest entry, there will be some players who play it and say “oh, this is the best Final Fantasy”, and then there will be others who say “this isn’t Final Fantasy!”. And we do understand that on a company level. “When we develop a Final Fantasy and release it as the latest entry, there will be some players who play it and say ‘oh, this is the best Final Fantasy’, and then there will be others who say ‘this isn’t Final Fantasy!’. And we do understand that on a company level.” For the next instalment of the Final Fantasy franchise, we are currently discussing it among the company and considering what sort of response players could provide. We are discussing what would be best for the next Final Fantasy, and this discussion is taking place across Square Enix as a company, but as someone who’s involved in the franchise working on Final Fantasy 14 and 16, I am sharing my opinions as well. Of course at this point in time, we can’t share any information about the latest instalment in the franchise, but we are very seriously considering and discussing the possibilities, and we will never give up on that challenge, so I do hope that players will look forward to whatever is released in the future. When Blizzard Entertainment [523 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/activision-blizzard/blizzard-entertainment/”>Blizzard, he was talking about the possibility of Diablo coming to Switch 2, and he implied that it could be difficult to bring a live service game over to a system like that, presumably because some players tend to use it offline. Would that be one of the potential sticking points in perhaps bringing Final Fantasy 14 to Switch 2? I’d like to first start by saying I don’t know exactly the intentions and details behind what Rod mentioned. When it comes to Final Fantasy 14, when I became in charge and A Realm Reborn was released, of course it was available on PC but the main platform was PlayStation 3, and so that was already a console. And so I consider consoles to have a network environment as a given, and I think that goes for not only Nintendo [5,527 articles]” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/nintendo/”>Nintendo’s platforms. Especially when we consider the younger players – when they were born things such as network connections were already the norm and a given for them, and growing up they’ve always had that around them, so for me as a developer I don’t really have so much concern about that kind of element. For me, it’s just my aim to provide Final Fantasy 14 and 16 to as many players as possible, and I hope that as many players as possible will be able to enjoy those two games. We are putting in our best efforts to ensure that this happens, so it’s fine to convey to your readership that I consider the possibilities very positively, and we are putting in our best efforts, so I hope players would look forward to possibilities in the future. But I just ask for a little bit more time. When it comes to existing Final Fantasy 14 players, if hypothetically a Switch 2 version was released, they would have the chance, for example, going through the main story – they could play that on the PC and do raiding on the PC, but when it comes to other types of content they could sit back, relax on the sofa with the Switch 2 in hand, and they could do their gatherer and crafter content, and I’m super excited about that sort of possibility for our players. When it comes to players who haven’t played Final Fantasy 14 before, the younger generation of players, if they started playing Final Fantasy 14 on Switch 2, of course being an MMO, it might be a new genre for them, and I would be super excited to get these new players into this genre and enjoying the game as well. So to this end we have been discussing with Nintendo, and the discussions have been positive, so I do hope that players will look forward to hopefully good news in the future. There are many games out there with large player bases – and Final Fantasy 14 is no different – which often have players saying “why don’t they just do this?” “I wish they could just do that.” Is there one specific thing you wish people understood more about the game development process? Of course, the players are our customers and they’re paying money to play our games, so if it comes to the question of whether I would give them a flat out request to understand a certain aspect more, I think both from a technical perspective and a workflow perspective I would not have that expectation towards the players. That being said, we do get a lot of feedback from the players, and they say things like “oh, I want such-and-such system” or “I want this type of content”. When it comes to the types of things we can do, I will be open and say “this is possible” and give a timeline of “we would be able to do it by such-and-such a time”. “If anything, I hope that [the players and I] would be able to have an open and mutual discussion, because at the end of the day we are people, and I do hope that we will be able to reach a mutual understanding and continue to openly discuss the possibilities together.” When it comes to things which we are not able to do, I would say openly that it isn’t possible, or I could say that technically it isn’t possible yet, but I would provide various types of answers based on the situation. So when I am asked these questions by players I will be open and provide an honest answer, and when I am asked the reason why it’s not possible it’s been my policy right from the start to be open and honest about the reasons. If there is anything I would ask from the players, it’s that I hope they would be open and receptive and listen to the answers that I provide, because if they provide me a response along the lines of “well, that’s got nothing to do with us” or “that’s not our problem”, it would make me stop and think “okay, well how should I answer questions moving forward?” If anything, I hope that we would be able to have an open and mutual discussion, because at the end of the day we are people, and I do hope that we will be able to reach a mutual understanding and continue to openly discuss the possibilities together. And I would also like to say something, not as a developer of Final Fantasy 14 or as a member of Square Enix, but just as a member of the games developer community in the industry. I attended Opening Night Live for Gamescom and I could see all the gamers gathered from around the globe. As developers, it’s our aspiration and aim to make the best playing experience for all of our players to enjoy, and I really hope that players will not forget that we are putting in our very best in order to deliver that experience for them. Of course, from a player’s perspective, there are games which they might find fun, and there are other games which might not have been fun for them. But at the end of the day, as developers, we are doing our very best to provide the best gaming experience for the players, and I really do hope that the players won’t forget that. Of course, right now around the world, there are a lot of big problems and very difficult situations. As a result of that, there is certain feedback that comes up on social media. But I do hope that players won’t forget at the end of the day that as developers, we are people too. I really hope that we can work on fostering the positive relationship with our players, because we are people, and I really hope that we can strive together to work on that relationship together and really make it something positive. Finally, how are you doing in general? You’ve worked on Final Fantasy 14 for more than a decade now, you produced Final Fantasy 16, and you say you’ve been contributing your opinion on 17. Are you okay? Are you not creatively exhausted? Do you have a way of keeping your energy up? [Laughs] Oh, but I want to hear your thoughts. Looking at me today, do I look exhausted or burned out? You’re the picture of health. You look like a 20-year-old man. [Laughs] Then that’s your answer! I’m all good.
