Final Fantasy XIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) recently made an appearance at Korea’s G-STAR 2025. Talking to local outlet Inven, he shared his future plans for a “second rebirth” of FFXIV.
According to Yoshida, with FFXIV having entered its second decade of operations, the development team has some significant announcements prepared, and the idea behind them is (based on machine translation) “rethinking everything from scratch.” Yoshida explains that, with players’ disposable time dwindling in recent years, FFXIV will have to adapt to their needs and desired playstyles.
“MMORPGs are a genre built around investing lots of time, so I think they don’t fit very well into today’s era. There are already many long-time veteran players who are ahead of everyone else, and catching up to them requires enormous time investment, which many people simply can’t manage. I think it’s unfair that a player can’t experience the fun unless they invest hundreds of hours.”
Still, Yoshida thinks MMORPGs have room to continue thriving, if they change. “I want to hear how long players can stay logged in, and what kind of play they actually do once they log in. The game needs to adapt to that.” Through future updates in FFXIV, Yoshi-P aims to give players “something to look forward to each time you log in, and satisfaction that matches the expectations.”
While FFXIV is already designed to allow short and incremental playing sessions, Yoshida wants to make the way it works even more intuitive. His goal is to design an environment in which even beginners and mobile game players can understand how to play to get the kind of entertainment value they want within the time they have available. “This is purely an example, but imagine that when you log in, the game asks you “Do you only have two hours to play today?”, “Do you want to get stronger today?”, or “Are you in the mood to enjoy the story today?” And based on your answer, the game suggests how to play.”
While he doesn’t go into the specifics (not wanting to give competitors any hints), it seems Yoshi-P is looking for ways to tailor FFXIV to players with different priorities and help make even short gaming sessions rewarding, rather than leaving players to their own devices amidst the game’s years’ worth of content. This second rebirth of FFXIV is something Yoshida would like to realize in the not-too-distant future.
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