FFXIV director has been secretly playing with the community using an alt account

The director of Final Fantasy XIV Naoki Yoshida has admitted that he owns a secret alt account, which he’s been playing on to engage with the community.

If there’s anyone that Final Fantasy XIV players know about, it has to be director Naoki Yoshida. The beloved game dev is adored by fans from all over the world, renowned for turning the game around from its less-than-desirable beginnings.

With all his time constantly tuning and working on the game, it’s hard to tell if the dev gets much time to enjoy Eorzea himself. Particularly with the upcoming release of Dawntrail, it’s all hands on deck to ensure that the new expansion is the best it can be for players.

However, Yoshida has revealed that he does indeed have an alt character, one that he uses to play with the community, but he feels sad that he isn’t able to communicate or interact with them on a deeper level.

In an interview with TheGamer, Yoshi-P revealed that around “85-90%” of the team are actually Warriors of Light who are hiding their true identity. This includes Yoshi-P himself, who has claimed that he often makes friends and joins in group activities with his alt characters.

Yoshida explained that this let him enjoy the community “outside of the intended schemes and mechanics.”

“A lot of people have been playing together with me and they don’t even realize it. I might even be on their friend’s list and they don’t know about it.”

Unfortunately, since he is such a renowned member of the Final Fantasy XIV community, he has to distance himself from his party members. This is the side of anonymity that always makes the devs pretty sad, as he has to turn down dinner invitations or voice chats to prevent giving away his identity.

“I have so many friends in-game, but when they all say, ‘Oh, let’s go for dinner’, I cannot join them, and that makes me sad. I can’t even voice chat with them.”