Final Fantasy XIV's director intends to work on the game for the next 10 years

An off-hand comment from Final Fantasy XIV’s director, Naoki Yoshida has a lot of fans excited and talking. During a Final Fantasy XIV mahjong tournament stream, a comment was translated loosely via Reddit, and it sure is an exciting one.

According to the man himself, Yoshida is healthy and can work on the game for the next ten years. This casually slipped into conversation, where the developer also said that they have been too busy to try the new in-game Raids.

Given that Naoki Yoshida is responsible for saving Final Fantasy XIV in the first place, this is a very exciting prospect.

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How Yoshida saved Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV has been a huge hit, thanks to Naoki Yoshida's vision (Image via Square-Enix)

It was already fairly clear where Yoshida saw himself over the next ten years, according to a Famitsu column from November 2021. The developer said they were making preparations for the next ten years of FFXIV, and would be leading the way for that entire duration.

This stands well with the statement that Naoki Yoshida is looking to keep working on the MMO over the next decade, which was stated in that recent Mahjong livestream. This is important to many fans of the game since Yoshida saved the game from being a flop.

The original game was a complete mess, and was barely playable. Many players felt like it was a slightly prettier Final Fantasy XI, and was not what they were after. At that point, Naoki Yoshida joined the team, looked into all of the player complaints, and made the game free-to-play while it was worked on again.

Naoki Yoshida saved this game, and will continue to bring his vision to life over the next ten years (Image via Square-Enix)

What players received was Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn, which has gone on to be one of the biggest hits in the MMO genre. It’s an MMO that grew so popular that Square-Enix had to temporarily stop selling the digital game not once, but twice.

To know that Naoki Yoshida is going to continue to stay on board for the next ten years of the MMO’s life is a relief to fans.

The developer’s vision for what the game’s future could be has turned into a smash hit. The future for FFXIV looks to be bright as it heads into another ten years of compelling storytelling and gameplay.