Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn director Naoki Yoshida answered a lot of questions regarding the game’s future in his ‘Letter from the Producer’ Q&A session yesterday.
The biggest news is probably that Square Enix is making good progress with the upcoming, as yet untitled, expansion. Fans will hear more about it at the company’s Fan Festival 2014 on October 25.
”Well, we’ve finalized the title and the art is coming along nicely,” said Yoshida. ”The mock-ups have been completed for all of the fields and the work on the maps is moving along at a very rapid pace. We’ve also completed architectural checks for some of the dungeons as well. We’d like to share details with players globally at the same time, so please wait for Fan Festival to hear details about the expansion.”
Final Fantasy XIV is going to receive a version of Final Fantasy VII’s Gold Saucer theme park at some point, and Yoshida confirmed that a famous minigame from Square’s classic RPG will also be making a return.
”Well, I can tell you that chocobo racing will be implemented at the same time (as the Gold Saucer),” he confirmed to the delight of people who don’t remember how annoying that minigame was in FF7. ”In regards to chocobo racing,” he continued, ”we’ll most likely be making it possible to train your chocobos at the same time for parameters such as stamina and speed. Also, being able to ride a chocobo and race it with your character in control is a new endeavor for an MMORPG.”
Final Fantasy VIII’s card game Triple Triad will also be added into the game, playable everywhere in the game world. Other minigames are planned, including a ”basketball shooting game” and limited run Gold Saucer events.
Yoshida also confirmed that the next update, patch 2.38, will go live around the same time as the Tokyo Game Show, which kicks off on September 18. Patch 2.4, which is a beefier one that adds the new Ninja job class, is too complex for Yoshida to commit to a particular date, but he did say that the team is ”working as hard as possible to ensure that you won’t have to wait too long”.
You can read the full Q&A summary here. Be warned, it’s a biggie.
