In a recent interview with Dengeki Online, members of the FFXIV development team talked about the creation of the final Myths of the Realm Thaleia for Patch 6.5. Lead background artist Yoshiki Takanashi, character artist Ryota Itonaga, and character concept artist Marina Otani participated in the interview. [Thanks, Dengeki Online!]
When asked about whether the arena for the battle against Thaliak resembles the Thaliak River that is located in the Dravanian Hinterlands, Takanashi said that the similarities are no purpose and the arena looks like this because of an “outrageous” request from the game content team. The team asked the artist to create an arena that seemed like “walking on top of water running from a water container.”
For the fight against Llymlaen, the concept was to create a stage where the power of the wind parts the seas to form the arena. When Takanashi heard about the concept for the stage, he was very surprised and decided to also make it so the arena transforms into a T-shape due to the water walls. Additionally, Takanashi confirmed that for the Llymlaen fight some graphical updates were already included to facilitate the flowing water effects.
During the Oschon fight, the enemy turns into a giant and the player is sent into the sky. Making sure that the player can tell the movement, and maintaining the scale of the enemy proved tricky for the developers, so they decided to move the mountains in the background manually to create the impression of depth in the arena.
As for deciding the design of the Thaleia bosses in FFXIV, Otani said that they used the statues of Thaliak and Halone as reference, and then examined all the pieces of equipment in the game to add to the designs. Since there are 10 years’ worth of equipment, the artists described it as a very heavy process.
Final Fantasy XIV is immediately available for the PS4, PS5, and Windows PC. The Xbox Series X open beta is live now. The Dawntrail expansion will launch in Summer 2024.
