Plus plans for visual upgrades
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalkerbrought a close to some of the long-running MMO’s story arcs, but it’s far from the end for a game that proved so popular Square Enix briefly removed it from sale. In a live broadcast earlier this week, producer and director Naoki Yoshida outlined future ambitions, including making it possible to play all “main scenario dungeons of A Realm Reborn” with NPC pals instead of other players.
Yoshida also mentioned the game’s first planned graphical update, and a partial roadmap of new content to come in future patches.
You can watch an archive of the full Letter From The Produce livestreamover on Twitch, if you’ve got five hours spare.
Currently, FFXIV contains a Trust System via which players can delve intosomemain scenario dungeons with a party of NPCs. The upcoming patch 6.1 will expand it to all those in A Realm Reborn, with more to be added “at a later date.” It’s been a while since I’ve played an MMO but I was always a solo player when I did, and so I appreciate features like this. Square plan on going further, too, by adjusting “several low-level” dungeons “to support an accessible, solo-play experience.”
While announcing a “partial” roadmap for future updates, Yoshida also said that future patches would be released every four months, rather than every three-and-a-half as before. “Looking at our schedule and how we work, I do want my team to be healthy, and to be able to maintain a good level of quality because they’re taking the necessary breaks,” Yoshida said via translator. “To be honest, there were areas where we might not have performed as well as we should have, because some of us may have been pushing too hard.”
Here’s that partial roadmap in full:
