“I once fell asleep playing Final Fantasy 14. My own game!” [INTERVIEW]

On the sidelines of his presence at the Japan Expo show, we were able to speak with Naoki Yoshida, director and producer of the famous online role-playing game Final Fantasy 14. Our interview.

The story of Final Fantasy 14has all the makings of an adventure. The famous MMORPG (massively multiplayer role-playing game) from Square Enix launched today. in September 2010 received, à its release, a strongly negative critical reception. A scandal for Yōichi Wada, president of Square Enix & at the time, who was forced to publicly apologize to the player and declared that the release of Final Fantasy 14 has greatly damaged the branding of the license.

Continued à This debacle, Square Enix is ​​banking everything on one man to turn around its MMORPG: Naoki Yoshida. Mainly known à at the time for his work on the game series "Dragon Quest" of which he directed three episodes, Yoshida managed in a few months to achieve completely review Square Enix's MMORPG for release in August 2013. At the time, the stakes were immense: if the overhaul of Final Fantasy 14 is a failure, it is the very survival of the company that could be called into question.

The miracle is nevertheless realized. : renamed "Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn", the title received a generally good critical reception, and which will continue&# 39;improve over the extensions until you reach becoming today one of the most played MMORPGs in the world.

Guest special at the 25th edition of Japan Expo Paris, Naoki Yoshida took a few precious minutes of his time to respond to some of our questions around Final Fantasy 14 and its latest expansion "Dawntrail" published on July 2, 2024. Discover our interview.

© Linternaute/Julian Madiot The latest expansion for Final Fantasy 14, Dawntrail, was released several weeks ago now. What are your feelings about the first feedback? of players &agrav; about the latter ?

"I think we had the best launch in the history of MMORPG or at least the smoothest."

The first thing that stuck in our throats when Endwalker was released (editor's note: latest expansion released in December 2021) was the server problem when launching ucirc; &agrav; the massive influx of players. This had even led  the complete cessation of sales of the game, we had never seen that before. Our primary objective for the release of Dawntrail was therefore to resolve this issue and reduce the queues as much as possible for the launch of the extension. I think that with all our efforts and given the feedback from the players, this objective has been achieved. filled. I even think that we achieved the best launch in the history of MMORPGs or at least the smoothest.

This also includes the big graphic overhaul that you carried out. on the game &agrav; the opportunity to Dawntrail ?

This was the second major project alongside the extension. This graphical overhaul has been desired for a long time, but when working on an MMORPG of this scale, such an overhaul represents a huge cost. ;ucirc;ucirc;t and a risk of ending up with a game full of bugs or with a result that is not up to par. the height. But I think that we have generally succeeded in this objective even if I am aware that there are still bugs that we are still working on.

The latest FF14 expansion introduced a major graphical overhaul to the game. © Square Enix Could we also come back to the scenario of Dawntrail ? The opinions seem quite mixed around the latter.

Obviously not everything is rosy about this new expansion. We received a lot of criticism on the scenario and in particular the beginning of this new story which would be too slow in the opinion of many people. But on the other hand' We received a lot of support from players who enjoyed the game. to have a somewhat 'holiday' episode, where everyone has time to discover the new cultures and characters introduced for Dawntrail. It is therefore a very difficult exercise because these are half-white/half-black returns and we no longer really know which foot to dance on. We will therefore collect all the opinions and try to find the right balance to satisfy all the players.

"We received a lot of criticism about the main character of this expansion, Wuk Lamat."< /p>

We particularly noticed; that players who like difficulty and high level dungeons particularly didn't like it. the Dawntrail scenario which would take far too long according to them. Conversely, more casual players who like to take their time walking around and visiting new places seem to have had a lot of fun playing. discover the new region of Tural and the town of Tuliyollal. We will therefore potentially work on a new method for the next scenarios by integrating more lore content within the secondary quests rather than in the secondary quests. #39;main story of the expansion.

And regarding the characters in this expansion ?

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We have received quite a bit of criticism about the main character of this expansion, Wuk Lamat. He is a character who is not free from faults and which, at the beginning, presents quite a few problems, notably an inferiority complex. compared to &agrav; those around him. This drags out the story even more and, cumulatively, with this new, more "relaxed" and "holiday", many players felt shortchanged and felt that the story lacked "oomph".

The character of Wuk Lamat is at the center of the Dawntrail expansion. But its story does not seem to excite all players. © Square Enix My feelings are also mixed. The extension seems to be developed in two very distinct parts, but I found it quite different. that each of them can satisfy a type of player that you mentioned earlier. A "holiday" and a game with stakes.

Thank you very much for your sincere opinion. This is precisely the difficulty here. by presenting a whole new continent and a new history. But at the same time, to feel the game with stakes, as you say, you already have to play the game. understand where ù Here come these issues and this world which is still foreign to us by developing it beforehand. Unfortunately, this balance is complicated. &agrav; find and we will do our best à look forward to improving on this point.

In a recent interview, you stated that you & precisely too far to reduce the stress involved. How do we achieve this? juggling between content that rewards effort and content that doesn't scare players away with its difficulty. ?

This interview wasn't really on that subject, but I understand what you're saying and it reminds me of a funny anecdote.& ;nbsp;It was a few years ago now, during version 6.2 (released August 2022) of Final Fantasy 14 I think. I came home from work and started the game. the game in the evening – because yes, I play à my own game. I wanted to do an expert dungeon and, for the first time, I fell asleep playing my own game!

"Ié fell asleep while playing &agrav; my own game!"

You fell asleep while playing Final Fantasy 14?

It's ça. As I was doing this dungeon, I felt like I had already done this. seen all its mechanics elsewhere. My opinion may be biased, but I haven't stopped to feel a certain dullness, a "routine" who had settled in. So I said to myself that, by reusing challenge and difficulty mechanics, I would like to improve my skills. for the players, we especially lost originality; since we reused a lot of ideas already in the past. seen in other dungeons or raids in the game. This idea of ​​new and exciting things was missing from the game. discover. The next day I asked for help. allows teams to imagine and propose ideas, each crazier than the last, to potentially integrate them into the game later.

But obviously, when we create new content, we tend to create new content. assimilate it to of difficulty. But by replaying é this new content several times, I believe that we acquire a certain mastery. This is the dynamic that we have put in place for Dawntrail and I can't wait for you to discover our new ideas which are already in place. agrave; plenty of them to spread out until the setting à day 7.3.

"Beyondà fictions, I think Final Fantasy 14is mainly inspired by what happens in the real world."

I still think that a lot of players like difficult content that takes them out of the repetitive loops of gameplay that they can all do days. I would ideally like the mastery of difficult content to come from the help of the community. With the help of guides, advice or simply help with players.

During one of the announcements for the Dawntrail expansion, you almost became an internet meme by pushing back the release date of the expansion to allow people to enjoy the expansion. Elden Ring DLC ​​released à the same period. Did this game inspire you? for Dawntrail ?

Not really. The extensions of Final Fantasy 14 are instead inspired by the base game itself that we are simply expanding small to large. little. More than other video games, I would say that Final Fantasy 14 is more inspired by video games. through media such as manga, films, novels or anime. But beyond that fiction, I think that Final Fantasy 14 is mainly inspired by what happens in the real world.

During the press tour of Final Fantasy 16 (editor's note: last é episode dated of the series of which Naoki Yoshida is director), I had the impression that the whole world was falling into gloom and doom. and that a kind of shadow hovered over humanity. in general. I had the impression that bad news and situations were happening all over the world. But I thought that most of these situations could be resolved through discussion and it was these kinds of thoughts that I wanted to bring into my life. manage à Dawntrail. On the other hand, I cannot hide an inspiration from God of War and Game of Thrones for Final Fantasy 16.

So you haven't played the game yet. à Elden Ring ?

My team and I are all gamers. We love seeing what's being done out there. side and we actually played &agrav; Elden Ring. This title is fascinating in its approach to telling a storyline, but with very little ;éelements and cinematic scenes. The fact of arriving at Creating an entire world filled with many secrets without ever holding the player's hand inspired us a lot. for our work. Finally, I will say that the latest games in the "Legend of Zelda" series also left a big impression on us ;s in recent years.