FFXIV: Dawntrail, a “starting point for the next 10 years”

It’s a Friday evening in June in Tokyo and Naoki Yoshida has plans for the weekend.

“Take your time, rest.”

This is pretty standard, you might think. But Yoshida-san, the director of Final Fantasy 14 (FF14), knows that this will probably be his last chance to relax for a while.

When he speaks to BBC Newsbeat, there is a week until the release of Dawntrail, the latest expansion for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

After a “disastrous” launch in 2010, FF14 became the most profitable title in the franchise’s history, according to publisher Square Enix.

The game changed things so much that servers struggled to keep up with demand when the previous expansion, Endwalker, launched in December 2021.

That’s not the only change since FF14’s release. The industry, and Japan’s place in it, has also evolved over the past decade.

Final Fantasy is a massive cultural export for the country, and Square Enix has said it wants to focus more on the “global market” and its fans around the world.

Evidence of this approach can be found in Dawntrail, a pivotal moment for Yoshida-san and his team, which he calls “the starting point for the next 10 years of Final Fantasy 14.”

Endwalker ended a decade-long story arc and Dawntrail opens a new saga. It also adds a graphical overhaul to the game, as well as new character classes and other features.

The game is billed as a “summer vacation,” with the action taking place in the sunny, Latin American-inspired region of Tural in the world of FF14.

Yoshida-san explains that Final Fantasy games previously took inspiration from Europe and East Asia, and his team wanted to try something different.

He says Central and South America offer a “huge area” with “a lot of history” to draw on.

Authentic representation of other cultures is something that Square Enix has been criticized for in the past, and its recent games have made efforts to address this.

Yoshida-san says he’s always viewed FF14 as a “global game,” but acknowledges that the influence of social media has grown and “it’s become easier for people to come together and make their voices heard.”

He admits “there are risks” in representing other cultures, but his team made it a point “to learn about the culture, to read the available texts”.

“The world is diverse,” he said.

“There are people who have very different values, very different religions, very different relational conceptions.

“So it’s very important, in my opinion, that we understand these points.”

Final Fantasy games have always blended Japanese sensibilities with Western influences, but some have suggested that the series has recently experienced an identity crisis.

Yoshida-san tells Newsbeat that Square Enix makes “50 to 80 percent” of its profits from “overseas fans,” who are “really important to take into account when we make the game.”

But he believes a balance must be struck.

“We were born in Japan, we were raised in Japan. So we were raised with elements of Japanese culture,” he says.

“So if we focus too much on foreign audiences, we don’t have that background and context.

“If we focus so much on foreign audiences, then everything we do will not be successful. »

However, Yoshida-san says developers cannot live in a bubble.

“I think knowing the world is very important for us in our future development,” he says.

There was another big change to Final Fantasy recently.

Square Enix produces games for many platforms, but has a history of making exclusive deals to ensure certain titles only appear on certain consoles.

Sales of two recent PlayStation 5-only games, Final Fantasy 16 (FF16) and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, have reportedly disappointed in Japan.

After their release, CEO Takashi Kiryu told investors the company is reportedly “aggressively pursuing a cross-platform strategy” to bring its games to more machines.

Yoshida-san is no stranger to exclusivity arguments, having released the long-awaited Xbox version of FF14 this year.

It’s a sign of a broader shift in the industry, where companies are becoming less selective about where their games appear.

In Japan, figures suggest that gamers are choosing to play on mobile or the Nintendo Switch – which recently became the country’s best-selling console of all time.

“We want to have players regardless of what device they play on,” Yoshida-san says.

“We want them to play our game and all connect, participate and then play together in the same world.”

Yoshida-san says Xbox CEO Phil Spencer “dedicated a lot of his time” to bringing FF14 to Xbox.

“Thanks to his hard work, I am very, very happy that we were able to bring this project to fruition,” he says.

“But of course, there are platforms that remain. »

When asked what it is, Yoshida-san doesn’t hesitate.

“Sure,” he said. “It goes without saying that it would be Nintendo’s platform.

“I’m sure people are waiting for the answer to this question.”

For now, however, Yoshida-san has a more pressing issue on his mind: giving Dawntrail “the best possible launch.”

After his weekend off, he expects to be busy.

“I’m sure it’s going to be sleepless nights, we’re just going to have our eyes glued to the state of the service,” he said.

Endwalker’s rough beginnings will linger in players’ minds, but Yoshida-san says he’s not one to dwell on the past too much.

“That’s already happened,” he said. “And that’s not really going to move us forward.” »

“Looking to the future is our job.”

Despite this, Yoshida-san says there is one important thing to remember.

“The players who stayed with us, who trusted the Final Fantasy 14 team.

“They were really a source of motivation,” he says.

“They really pushed us to get to where we are and we wouldn’t be here without them.

“With that in mind, we really want to do our best for the Final Fantasy 14 community.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. on weekdays – or listen again here.