‘I hope players don’t forget we are people too’: Final Fantasy 14’s Yoshi-P on community, crossovers, and consoles

“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 Gamescom, and the Final Fantasy 14 director/producer and I are each other’s first appointments of the show.

It’s rare for the interviewee to thank the interviewer for their time before they can get a word in, though – usually it’s the other way around – but thus begins the charm offensive Yoshida – best known by fans of the Final Fantasy series as 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 Switch 2 port and finally, true to form, a call for the gaming community to come together peacefully.

Although this interview took place last week, today marks exactly 12 years since Yoshida’s relaunched version of Final Fantasy 14, subtitled A Realm Reborn, was released on PlayStation 3 and PC.

Let’s start with the news about the Final Fantasy 14 and Monster Hunter Wilds collaboration. How did that crossover start? When it’s a single game getting a crossover, it’s easier to figure out who approached whom with the idea, but with both games getting crossover content, did Square Enix approach Capcom or vice versa?

Actually, the Final Fantasy 14 development team and the Monster Hunter team at Capcom have a very long rooted history and a very long connection. It goes back to the days of the 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? Xbox players just got it last year for the first time, for example.

For example, you sometimes get the longer-term players saying things like “jobs should be more complicated”, and others saying “no, make them simpler”. Is it difficult finding a balance?

Can I double-check the intention behind the question? If it’s more about the content design or if it’s more about job mechanics, the answer I will provide is very different. We have a lot of different elements in Final Fantasy 14, so I just wanted to make sure that I understood the focal points of the question.

Job mechanics was just an example of one thing. It was more of a general question about how, with each new update, you decide the balance between adding more and more content, without it becoming overwhelming.

Thank you. Firstly, regarding existing players, the point came up in one of your previous questions – Final Fantasy 14 is a story driven game. And so the first thing that we place the primary importance on for new players is for them to play through the whole main story, and we want them to enjoy that experience.

So we place the most importance on making sure that the player’s experience throughout the main scenario is as smooth as it can be for them, and we make sure to follow up accordingly to that end.

“We place the most importance on making sure that the player’s experience throughout the main scenario is as smooth as it can be for them, and we make sure to follow up accordingly to that end.”

When it comes to the example of job mechanics, it was back at the time of Shadowbringers – so around two expansions ago – that we received a lot of feedback from the players that for the job that they were playing with, they wanted to have a certain action from another job.

We received quite a lot of this feedback, and the general feedback was that they wanted a more averaged-out experience for playing each job, so we took that in and we acted on that feedback.

But I think either way you look at it, there’s no case of “this adjustment would be good” or “this kind of direction of adjustment would be bad”. In any case, I think it’s more a case of addressing the players’ needs. And so when we get that sort of feedback from the players, we make sure to make our adjustments.

The thing that I place importance on is making sure that the players’ sense of excitement is still there. And I think we always have to keep that in mind, and make sure that we are working on that feedback accordingly.

So I think, inevitably, that becomes the answer to the question. So there’s really no kind of hard or firm “this is the correct answer”, but inevitably that becomes the answer that we take.

When it comes to the next expansion, if we took on the player feedback that they want the jobs to be more complicated, and if we made those adjustments, then eventually we would get the same kind of feedback that we wouldn’t be able to satisfy all of the players. So with that in mind, we always aim to make sure that we’re providing an exciting playing experience for the players.

Having said that, right now we do have something really big planned regarding jobs. At this point in time, I cannot share any details. But I do hope that players will look forward to an announcement in the future.

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 16 would have been better received if it didn’t have Final Fantasy in the title, because players bring their own preconceptions as to what Final Fantasy means to them?

Apologies if I haven’t really accurately taken in the intention of the question. Regarding Final Fantasy 14, 15 and 16, I think in the first place if they weren’t 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 Rod Fergusson was still at 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 PlayStation but also Xbox and 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.