Summary

• Final Fantasy 14 continues to expand with the expansion, Dawntrail, set to arrive in Summer 2024, attracting new players as it becomes compatible with Xbox consoles.
• from players of Final Fantasy 16, who have never played FF14, has been incorporated into the development of FF14, showing lessons learned across different game types.
• The future influx of players will be handled through opening new data centers and creating more worlds, as well as implementing Cloud Data Centers to handle the extra players. The game plans to retain the attention of older players with surprising story elements that will be revealed in fan festivals.

Even after completing its 10th anniversary, Final Fantasy 14 is bound to continue expanding. The critically acclaimed MMORPG has hundreds of hours of content and seems to be pushing for even more, as the next expansion, Dawntrail, is set to arrive in Summer 2024. Additionally, the game will also receive a whole new pool of players, as it will finally become compatible with Xbox consoles through the Series X/S family. With a new chunk of content planned and a new player base inbound, FFXIV is expected to be as busy as ever, even if its main 10-year saga of Light and Darkness has come to an end.

The game is directed by Naoki Yoshida, known by the community as Yoshi-P. The Japanese developer also acted as a Producer on Final Fantasy 16, released earlier this year. Even though the MMORPG and the single-player title are vastly different, there are lessons learned across the development of the games that make a difference moving forward. Screen Rant had a chat with Yoshi-P during BGS (Brazil Game Show) 2023 about the future of the MMORPG. As Final Fantasy 14 draws closer to its next expansion, Yoshida also promises big surprises and the prospect of more years of content, depending on how the community reacts to what is released.

Did you learn anything from Final Fantasy 16's development, release, or reception that you have started to apply to FFXIV?

Naoki Yoshida: Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 14, while [products of] the same CBU (Creative Business Unit), CBU 3, are completely different development teams. They are also completely different games. One is a standalone game whereas the other is an MMO. So, there is not a lot of overlap in the development of those two. However, with Final Fantasy 16, we found out that a lot of the people playing FF16 are those who have never played Final Fantasy 14. We are getting from a type of people who have never played FF14, and that is a lot different from the from players of FF14, so taking the from non-MMO players, we are able to take it back and incorporate it into Final Fantasy 14, and this is something we can definitely use moving forward.

What is the plan to deal with the new influx of players when the Xbox community arrives to Final Fantasy 14 and considering Dawntrail's release in Summer 2024 so as to not repeat the server issues that were long-lasting and so evident following the release of Endwalker?

Naoki Yoshida: One thing that we have already done is having opened a new North America Data Center, as well as new Worlds. The next step is to open more Worlds on top of that – these physical new Worlds to create more space for players. Another thing that we are doing to handle this influx of players is something that we have been looking into and researching for the past five years, which is Cloud Data Centers. We’re ready to implement that and do a test very soon. We’ll have more information about that soon. Once we’ve done that test, we get and can prove that this is a good idea, then that gives us another option for handling that large influx of players. We can have these Cloud Data Centers that can be used to handle this extra influx and bring those together into something bigger.

With the Light and Darkness saga now ended, can we expect Dawntrail to be the start of another 10-year saga or is this an isolated episode in the story of Final Fantasy 14? In of story content, how does the game plan to retain the attention and devotion of older players?

Naoki Yoshida: The honest answer is that we don’t really know. Of course, we have these seeds of this story we want to tell that we are going to plant and lay it out there. Ultimately, however, it’s going to be the player that decides whether this is something we should continue or not. So we’re really looking forward to that first amount of we get from players once they start playing Dawntrail. Because we have our European Fan Fest coming up and then the Tokyo Fan Fest after that, we can’t say everything right now because we want to say it there, of course. But we have some pretty surprising things regarding the story that are going to come, things that we believe that players are truly going to be excited and surprised about. There’s a lot to look forward to, and we hope that when we do release those things, the players can feed off of that energy. While we did wrap up things in Endwalker with the saga of Light and Darkness, the expansion itself hinted that there are still other Shards, places to go. There are still things we can explore, so it’s not like we’re limiting ourselves to this new saga. We still have the ability to go back and explore those other things as well.

The region of Tural seems to be fueled by Prehispanic cultures in Latin America. I was wondering if the team did any real-life research to bring Tural to life, anything curious that you discovered, and how you are handling the portrayal of such a civilization in the game.

Naoki Yoshida: We announced that we are heading to Tural and players finally got to see that. And then coming here to Brazil and meeting up with the players in Brazil, and getting directly about that, people seem to be very happy that they feel that influence in the information we’ve released so far. There’s a sense of pride and happiness that there is that representation of this culture in the game and that, for us, is a very exciting thing. But again, when exploring this new world and landmass, we want to represent lots of different types of peoples, histories, and cultures. In the development team, we don’t have that, so we have consulted with outside groups to help us better understand these cultural groups and their histories so that we don’t do anything that’s going to offend anyone. While Final Fantasy 14 is its own unique world, because we are bringing in these essences, we want to make sure everyone is happy. We want to make sure we are paying respect to those peoples and cultures, but also take that and blend it in with Final Fantasy 14 to make it something that both represents and is unique.

Final Fantasy 14 has traditionally conveyed a message of hope and camaraderie among friends. It seems that with what's been shared about the beginning of Dawntrail, with the Scions being divided in Tural, the overarching message and tone might shift. Can you tell us more about what kind of feelings and messages you hope to convey with this expansion?

Naoki Yoshida: For us, things like camaraderie, justice, and always having hope are universal themes that we want to continue exploring in Final Fantasy 14. So even with this change in story, I think those themes will probably remain. With the story of Dawntrail and this rite of succession that’s going to be a contest, the Scions are going to be split between the two factions. It’s not like they’re going to be turning on each other and fighting because they hate each other now. They still respect each other, but because they are on different sides, there’s going to be that kind of conflict, but it’s not a conflict of hate. In addition to that story, we have the surprise we mentioned before. This contest for the rite of succession and how it will end, I believe will surprise the players a lot, and can’t wait for them to see that with their own eyes rather than me telling them about it.