Final Fantasy XIV’s North American Fan Festival is currently underway in Anaheim, California, and with it has come some huge announcements about the MMORPG’s future. During the festival’s two-hour-long opening showcase, game director Naoki Yoshida (referred to as Yoshi-P by the community) announced that XIV’s next expansion, Evercold, is slated to release in January 2027, and brings with it two new classes and several major changes. But while Yoshida delivered a lot of exciting news on stage, the director had plenty to say about the game off stage, too.
Following the showcase, Yoshida met with members of the press to discuss both Evercold (which almost had a very different name, by the way) and Final Fantasy XIV as a whole. During this session, a reporter asked the director if he had ever considered creating a single-player Final Fantasy XIV–one more in line with the majority of the series’ numbered titles. With zero hesitation, Yoshida replied, “Yes.”
“There are still a lot of people out there who look at an online Final Fantasy and they say, ‘Well, an online Final Fantasy isn’t a real Final Fantasy,” Yoshida explained. He mentioned that, despite working on XIV for well over a decade now, even bringing just one more person to the world of Final Fantasy XIV remains an important mission to him. Naturally, this includes those who feel that XIV “isn’t a real Final Fantasy,” and would potentially jump in if it was a single-player experience.
However, Yoshida explained there’s one big issue with making a single-player Final Fantasy XIV game: the best team for the job is currently hard at work on another project.
“While I do love to consider making a standalone Final Fantasy XIV, unfortunately the only team that could make a standalone Final Fantasy XIV–the best standalone Final Fantasy XIV–is the current Final Fantasy XIV team. If we ever retire from Final Fantasy XIV Online, maybe we can do it as our work after retirement,” Yoshida said. “On the flip side, if there were people who are interested in creating a sort of standalone Final Fantasy–if you have friends or if you know companies that would like to take on that challenge–we would love to hear from them. I’m half-joking, but half-serious, actually. I mean, if someone’s passionate enough to want to helm that sort of project, we would love to hear from you.”
You heard it here first, folks. If you have a solid pitch (and presumably years of professional experience and the backing of a major publisher), now’s the time to slide into Yoshi-P’s inbox and make our collective dream a reality. Yoshida added this would also save him from another headache, as he’s “sure” that Final Fantasy XIV players wouldn’t be happy with another game stealing his attention.
“If [a spin-off] happened, I’m sure XIV players would look at that project and go, ‘Yoshi, instead of focusing on some spin-off project, you should work on the main, actual Final Fantasy XIV game.'”
Fortunately for us (and Yoshida, it would seem), the director remains focused on the future of Final Fantasy XIV Online. Over the course of the next year, Yoshida and the team are set to introduce several big changes to the title. These include a new battle mode, improved character creation, a UI overhaul, same-region player matching, and much more. The studio also confirmed that Final Fantasy XIV is headed to Switch 2, albeit with a bizarre caveat.
