Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida colloquially referred to as Yoshi-P hinted that the game will arrive on the Nintendo Switch in the future while also revealing he was not surprised that the most recent expansion, Dawntrail, received a mixed reaction.
A screenshot from Final Fantasy XVI (2024), Square Enix
In an interview with GameReactor, Yoshi-P stated, “I’m sure that all of the media and our players probably suspecting they really want to have our game release on Nintendo’s consoles, but the concept that we have for Final Fantasy XIV is to release our game on as many devices as possible.”
He added, “So looking towards achieving that goal. We are working towards, making progress and we are having discussions. So I hope that everyone can look forward to news in the time to come.”
A screenshot from Final Fantasy XVI (2024), Square Enix
Given Yoshi-P’s comments here it is unlikely the game will arrive on the current version of the Switch, but it is quite possible it could arrive on the successor to the Switch.
A successor to the Switch was announced by the President of Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa back in May. He stated, “This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.”
This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct…
— 任天堂株式会社（企業広報・IR） (@NintendoCoLtd) May 7, 2024
Final Fantasy XIV is one of the more popular MMOs on the market the game and has been around since 2013 after replacing the failed 2010 version. The game hit an all-time peak concurrent player count of 95,150 back in December 2021 on Steam and had a 24-hour peak of 30,537.
The game is currently available on PlayStation 4, macOS, PlayStation, and Xbox Series X|S.
A screenshot from Final Fantasy XVI (2024), Square Enix
While the game remains popular, it did find itself in the middle of a controversy following the release of the Dawntrail expansion by including a controversial voice actor as the voice of the DLC’s main character Wuk Lamat. Furthermore, the expansion sidelined the player character in favor of Wuk Lamat as the main character of the story.
In an interview with PC Gamer at Gamescom, Yoshi-P shared he was unsurprised by the mixed reception to the expansion. He said, “This being a game, it’s a form of entertainment, and you’ll always see some form of mixed response to entertainment. A second factor is that with Endwalker, we reached a big climax to a long-standing, spanning story. To a certain extent I had already predicted that we would have some sort of mixed response this time.”
He added, “So If the question is whether I was shocked in a big way, the answer is no, not really.”
A screenshot from Final Fantasy XVI (2024), Square Enix
In fact, upon reflection, Yoshi-P admitted there were some teams he and the team could have implemented better such as have some of the story beats “diverted to the side quests—so if anyone was interested in learning more about [them], then they could just play the side quests at their own time and enjoy it at their own pace.”
He also noted they will be taking into consideration feedback regarding how long it took to get to the battle content, “We did see feedback from people who wanted to tackle the battle content faster. So because we saw that type of feedback we will take that on board as a learning process and experience.”
A screenshot from Final Fantasy XVI (2024), Square Enix
As far as Wuk Lumat, he said, “We depicted Wuk Lamat as someone who had a bit of a complex towards her parents and also towards her siblings, and because of that lack of confidence, I think that also contributed to the slow pace and the feeling of frustration.”
“If we had maybe portrayed her as more of a confident character, maybe we would not have encountered that kind of situation,” he opined. “So in that regard, I feel that we did something quite bad for Wuk Lamat as a character. And taking on this experience, it made me realise that it’s important to consider those things when it comes to showcasing the character to the players.”
A screenshot from Final Fantasy XVI (2024), Square Enix
What do you make of Yoshi-P’s comments about bringing the game to a Nintendo console as well as addressing the mixed reactions to Dawntrail?
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