Final Fantasy 14’s Naoki Yoshida Opens Up About Patch 6.2’s Success

The latest major patch for Final Fantasy XIV Online, Patch 6.2 added new quests, dungeons, and raids. The patch also added additional long-awaited chapters to some of the storylines in the MMORPG, as well as the all-new Island Sanctuary–an almost Animal Crossing-like island–for players to enjoy and explore.

Following the release of Patch 6.2, GameSpot emailed Final Fantasy XIV Online director Naoki Yoshida to ask several questions about the update. The answers we received are transcribed below.

GameSpot: How have you found the experience of starting up a whole new story after getting out of one that lasted so long?

I must say, concluding a story that continued from the original Final Fantasy XIV made me feel relieved. That said, a new adventure doesn’t mean that the story up to this point is all going away; it’ll be a continuation of the story thus far. As for our team, we’re constantly thinking “How can we get everyone excited?” So even if we’re working on a new story, our everyday experiences remain largely unchanged.

With Patch 6.2, you have made some notable changes to cutscenes following specific dungeons to go along with adding them to the Trust system–these seem like great opportunities to go back and enhance them. Are there any old scenes you wish you could redo a certain way or are excited to revisit?

We’re still in the middle of integrating the Duty Support feature into existing content and working our way up. I didn’t have too many elements I specifically wanted to change, but one of the themes of Heavensward, which we updated in this round, was traveling alongside allies, so it was one of the things I wanted to revisit for sure.

What is your favorite part of the new Island Sanctuary mode?

There are a lot, but I like being able to play without needing to hurry and having the freedom to play by myself. Incidentally, I have yet to step foot in the island sanctuary on my personal account.

I’ve been thinking about leisurely enjoying my island sanctuary life once the other content has settled down.

Speaking of new modes, if you could add any game type, like survival or battle royale to FFXIV, without any restrictions, what would you like to put in?

“Without any restrictions” is quite unrealistic for me, so I’m unable to picture that in my head. FFXIV has its fundamental systems that make it FFXIV, along with its server systems, so any content that would be implemented into FFXIV would have to abide by those restrictions. With that in mind, while ensuring we don’t lose that Final Fantasy feel, I do think that the idea of content using blue mages could be interesting. I imagine there’d be a vast field where you can learn blue magic spells from enemies and other players, and everyone would fight to be the last one standing using the spells they learned. It’d be nice if I could make it a reality one day, but for now, the currently planned content takes priority.

Not exactly a 6.2-related question, but as a big fan of Hildibrand I was excited to hear the new relic quests are tied to his story; what made you decide to do this? More Hildibrand is always a good thing.

There’s always a lot of ideas when we brainstorm what to do for the next weapon enhancement content. At the same time, we also receive lots of feedback from our players. This time, rather than designating it to its own content, we settled on the idea of enhancing the weapons alongside a story, and Hildibrand turned out to be a good match for that. Not to mention Hildy’s back with us again, too.