Final Fantasy XIV producer describes Dawntrail as a “second rebirth” for hit MMO

Final Fantasy XIV’s executive producer, Naoki Yoshida, spoke with Famitsu about what fans can expect from the new expansion, referring to Dawntrail as a “second rebirth”.

Final Fantasy XIV just celebrated the last of its community events, Fan Fest Tokyo, width a slew of exciting features and content announced for the game’s next expansion, Dawntrail.

Following Fan Fest, FFXIV executive producer, Naoki Yoshida, spoke with Famitsu (translated from Japanese) about what the team has learned over the past 10 years since launching ARR.

“This time we are taking on the challenge as if it were a second rebirth,” he told journalists.

Yoshida was the man behind the first rebirth for Final Fantasy XIV too. Jumping behind the wheel to steer the game back on course after the disastrous reception of the game’s 1.0 build, going on to launch its new version, A Realm Reborn, to critical success.

Discussing the development team’s outlook ahead of the release of the next expansion, he went on to say he believed “we can deliver a game experience that is three or four times more solid” than previous expansions. Ending his comments of course with a phrase now iconic amongst XIV fans: “Please look forward to it.”

Yoshida also spoke about his personal feelings as the person in charge of the game’s overall vision and narrative arcs. “There are still many Japanese developers, especially the core generation of our development team, who grew up playing home game consoles rather than MMOs.” He explains “I think that if I had started making FFXIV thinking that it was an MMORPG, I might have run out of ideas.” adding he feels “really fortunate that it’s a Final Fantasy game.”

He went on to explain that being able to ask questions like ‘What would we do if this was a FF instead of an online game?’ is a large part of his “secret to not running out of ideas,” for new and fun features for Final Fantasy XIV.

Yoshida was quite candid about lessons learned during the development process at Fan Fest Tokyo, he also spoke about wanting to plan and prepare better to avoid delays in release, such as those Endwalker faced.

Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail is set for release later this year.