Dawntrail a “starting point for the next 10 years”

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

“Take it easy and rest.”

Pretty normal, 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 spoke to BBC Newsbeat, it was still a week until the release of Dawntrail, the latest expansion to 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 has gone through so many upheavals that the servers could barely keep up with demand when the previous expansion, Endwalker, launched in December 2021.

This isn’t the only change since the release of FF14. The industry and Japan’s role in it have also changed over the past decade.

Final Fantasy is a huge cultural export for the country and Square Enix has stated that 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 significant moment for Yoshida-san and his team, which he describes as “the starting point for the next 10 years of Final Fantasy 14.”

Endwalker ended a decades-long story arc and Dawntrail opened a new saga. The game was also graphically revamped and equipped with new character classes and other features.

It’s billed as a “summer vacation” and is set in the sunny, Latin American-inspired Tural region of the world of FF14.

Yoshida-san says that Final Fantasy games so far have been inspired by Europe and East Asia and his team wanted to try something different.

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

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

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

He admits that depicting other cultures “comes with risks,” but his team’s goal is to “get to know the culture and read the available texts.”

“The world is diverse,” he says.

“There are people with many different value systems, many different religions and many different views on relationships.

“And that’s why I think it’s really important that we understand these points.”

The Final Fantasy games have always mixed Japanese sensibilities with Western influences, but some say the series has recently undergone an identity crisis.

Yoshida-san told Newsbeat that Square Enix generates “50 to 80 percent” of its profits from “overseas fans” who are “a really important factor in the development of the game.”

However, he believes a balance can be found.

“We were born in Japan and grew up in Japan, so we grew up with parts of Japanese culture,” he says.

“So if we focus too much on the foreign audience, we miss that background and that context.

“If we focus so much on the foreign audience, everything we do will not be successful.”

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

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

Final Fantasy recently underwent another significant change.

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

Sales of two recent PlayStation 5 exclusive games, Final Fantasy 16 (FF16) and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, were reportedly disappointing in Japan.

After their release CEO Takashi Kiryu told investors The company would “aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy” to bring its games to more devices.

Yoshida-san is familiar with arguments about exclusivity, having released the long-awaited Xbox version of FF14 this year.

This is a sign of a larger shift in the industry: companies are choosing less and less carefully where their games appear.

In Japan, the numbers suggest that gamers prefer to play on mobile devices or the Nintendo Switch – the recently became the best-selling console in the country.

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

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

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

“Thanks to his hard work, I am super, super happy that we were able to realize the project,” he says.

“But of course there are platforms that remain.”

When asked what these could be, Yoshida-san does not hesitate.

“Of course,” he says. “It goes without saying that this would be Nintendo’s platform.”

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

Currently, however, Yoshida-san is busy with a more pressing matter: giving Dawntrail “the best possible start.”

After his weekend rest, he expects to be busy.

“I am sure we will have sleepless nights ahead because we will only have our eyes on the service status,” he says.

Endwalker’s difficult beginnings will stay with players, but Yoshida-san says he’s not the type to dwell too much on the past.

“That has already happened,” he says. “And that won’t really get us anywhere.”

“Looking to the future is our job.”

However, according to Yoshida-san, there is one important thing that must not be forgotten.

“The players who have stayed loyal to us and put their trust in the Final Fantasy 14 team.”

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

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

“Keeping them in mind, we really just want to do our best for the Final Fantasy 14 community.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 on weekdays – or listen to Here.