Final Fantasy XIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida announced its next expansion, Evercold, at the game’s North American Fan Festival in Anaheim yesterday, revealing bold new directions for the long-running MMORPG’s narrative and gameplay. With the Scions heading to a new reflection of the Source, Square Enix is looking to reinvent the way players interact with the game, empowering personalization on multiple levels.
The big announcements yesterday were just the tip of the iceberg, with Evercold deep in development, and more will be revealed at the subsequent European and Japanese Fan Festivals in July and October. However, CGMagazine was invited to attend a post-event press conference with Yoshida to gain a little more information on how Final Fantasy XIV’s latest evolutions will work.
Final Fantasy XIV’s Future On Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 4
One of the biggest changes to Final Fantasy XIV will actually come well before Evercold, as the long-awaited version for Nintendo Switch 2 will arrive this August. Yoshida clarified that Joy-Con 2 mouse controls will be supported, allowing players to get a taste of classic PC controls on the go. Asked specifically about their use in Savage Raids, Yoshida said they will naturally be tested as part of the development process, but he expects that Savage players would probably still prefer to play with a full mouse and keyboard as they’re accustomed to.
“‘Goal,’ to me, brings to my mind some sort of endpoint, and I really can’t imagine Final Fantasy XIV coming to an end.”
However, the system’s versatile design should help players play the game the way they’d like—one of the key concepts in mind for Final Fantasy XIV’s development team. With the pending shift from a daily focus to a weekly one, players will be able to hone in on the kind of content they enjoy, and Yoshida hopes the Switch 2 will empower them further to find the way of play that is most suited to them.
Yoshida specifically responded to comments he saw online in the wake of the announcement, stating that the team is working hard to optimize the game for Switch 2. Though players may see a lower frame rate in crowded social hubs, due to the sheer number of other players in the area, they have been able to achieve a stable 30fps. By extrapolation, for Duty content, players shouldn’t need to worry about their performance versus other players on more robust platforms like PC or PlayStation 5.
While on the matter of consoles, Yoshida sought to clear the air on the fate of the PlayStation 4 version of Final Fantasy XIV. During the keynote address, it was announced that the older Sony console would no longer be supported after patch 8.3, which will follow well after Evercold’s launch, but the discontinuation has nothing to do with the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 version this summer.
”The reason why we are looking to transition from the PS4 to the PS5, or encouraging players to do so, is because of the hardware limitations of the PS4,” Yoshida said through his interpreter. “It is the size of the game that is causing the hurdles right now. Sony has been kind enough to continue their support, even though we are reaching the hardware limit, given how large the capacity requirement for this game is. We’re reaching the point where the game is getting so big, the hardware itself will not be able to handle the game at that point.”
However, support for PS4 is not being yanked away immediately, so Square Enix is giving ample warning, so players of that particular version may “slowly consider transitioning to the PS5” by the time patch 8.3 arrives. (Given the game’s update cadence, this will likely give them about two years from now.)
Combat Evolved
One of the biggest concepts introduced in Evercold’s reveal was the “Evolved Combat” system, which will considerably overhaul the way players handle their classes in battle. Yoshida explained that in the wake of Dawntrail’s release, battle designer Hikaru Tanaka—now known to the community as “Mr. Prime” after his first appearance at a Fan Fest yesterday—was chosen to spearhead the effort to shake up combat. Tamaki began working on the system’s design about a year and a half ago, designing the new system while also attending to his usual design duties.
The new Evolved system will shake up the rotation of job abilities and give players more freedom, instead of cycling through set patterns. It stands to be one of the biggest changes to Final Fantasy XIV since A Realm Reborn, but established players will still be able to choose the existing system if they wish, toggling between Evolved and “Reborn” combat between encounters.
As for why the original approach is being preserved, Yoshida asked if anyone in attendance had experience with Star Wars Galaxies. “I actually really liked Star Wars Galaxies and its game design, but, for the betterment of the gameplay experience—they were doing it for the players—they took an existing system, and they just changed it to something entirely new. Players did not take that very well, and I know people refer to it as a very tragic incident.
”We’ve been building this game together with players worldwide, and we’ve been on this journey together. People have gotten so familiar and used to the system that we have established. And so I knew that I didn’t want to just suddenly remove what we’ve been used to. That was my decision from the start.”
Worlds Ever-Expanding
Final Fantasy XIV is expanding even at its basest level: its infrastructure. In the keynote, Yoshida announced that Same Region Player Matching will be in place before Evercold launches, allowing players to match with other players on the same Data Centers instead of being limited to their World.
“Even if I die or retire, Final Fantasy XIV would continue on without me.”
This stands to dramatically improve players’ experience in matchmaking or connecting to friends on other Worlds, but it might’ve seemed impossible only a few years prior—and Yoshida has the team’s long experience to thank for it.
Yoshida pointed out how Final Fantasy XIV originally didn’t have its existing Party Finder system at launch, and how, over time, they’ve been able to add things like World Visits. “With these building blocks stacking on top of each other,” the team grew “more confident about maintaining stability as players would travel between worlds.”
Each successful experiment opened new doors, leading them to realize that there was a way to metaphorically “tunnel” through the walls holding players apart from other Worlds. The actual process of implementing Same Region Player Matching involved a gradual replacement of the server equipment over the last two years, ensuring stability was maintained with each addition before continuing to the next.
Yoshida was proudly optimistic about the impact the expansion should have for players. “I’ve always wanted to get to this point, since around A Realm Reborn, where we can have player matching across the region.”
It’s clear, hearing Yoshida speak about the game, that the future is never too far from his mind—and he foresees quite a long future ahead for Final Fantasy XIV. “‘Goal,’ to me, brings to my mind some sort of endpoint, and I really can’t imagine Final Fantasy XIV coming to an end,” Yoshida said. “Even if I die or retire, Final Fantasy XIV would continue on without me. So [in that sense] the ‘goal’ would be for [the game] to continue on, to create that state so that it will continue to go on.”
As for where he wants it to be ten years from now, it seems Yoshida intends the new story arc, dubbed the “Godless Realms Saga,” to aspire to the same heights as the original “Hydaelyn & Zodiark Saga” that carried the game to this point. “Through Shadowbringers and Endwalker, we saw a climax to a story arc, and so I’m hoping in the next ten years, we would bring another climax that’s comparable, if not something that can surpass, what we experienced in the previous ten years.
“Right now we’re starting to build that story,” Yoshida went on. “We’re taking one step at a time to build that. It applies not just to Evercold, but also to Final Fantasy XIV; you would only see the end of the journey through the path the Warrior of Light has taken. If you continue to play, I think you’ll see that sort of meaning ahead of you.”
