Once again, Final Fantasy XIV Director and Producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida spoke about the game and its lifespan. This time, in an interview on the PlayStation Blog, he shared thoughts on when he thought the game’s story might have drawn to a close. In particular, he said he once thought the game would be nearing the end when the FFXIV 6.0 or 7.0 update launched.
The topic came up when talking about how the FFXIV 6.0 Endwalker expansion will finish the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga. Here’s Yoshida’s full statement going over how he once thought things would work out.
Since the time of A Realm Reborn, the idea of the “Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga” already existed and was what we were working off of when creating the story. Being able to tell this story to its conclusion required Final Fantasy XIV to succeed as an MMORPG, and we were far from being able to declare the ongoing story as the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga even at the time of Heavensward’s release. Following the release of Stormblood and having seen the growing community and success of the game, I thought it was time to more fully flesh out the concepts of the story and think as to how and where this conclusion might take place.
Back then, I felt 6.0 or 7.0 would be a good time to wrap things up, but with the excitement we saw with Shadowbringers being even higher than our expectations, I decided we shouldn’t draw the story out awkwardly, and continue the wave of excitement by concluding the story with Endwalker.
I’m genuinely excited to bring the finale of this story arc to our players. I wouldn’t say I feel sad that we are concluding this story arc that spanned over a decade because I must think about the next story now… There is no end to my work!
During the interview, Yoshida also confirmed he does “have ideas of where to take the story after Endwalker even for the next few years.” He also noted in a recent interview with The Washington Post that the game could continue as long as there’s still a strong and growing player base.
Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PlayStation 4 and PC. The PS5 open beta will begin on April 13, 2021. The FFXIV Endwalker expansion, which will bring the game up to 6.0, will debut in Fall 2021.
