Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is bringing an end to the story of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, the central narrative that’s run through the game from relaunch until now. (This would be why the title is Endwalker and not Spinning-our-wheels-walker.) Why end it now? In a new interview on Gamesradar, producer and director Naoki Yoshida likens it to dealing with a long-running television show and the potential for fatigue to set in with an overlong narrative:
Yoshida also talks about the game’s focus on console launches and the nature of the game having been on everything from the PlayStation 3 up to the upcoming PlayStation 5 beta. He gives two main reasons for the focus. The first is that the series history has long been present on consoles, so it feels wrong not to have a Final Fantasy game available on console. Beyond that, though, Yoshida is a fan of MMOs and wants to ensure that the genre is accessible to new players, which means developing a console version to allow more people to play and enjoy the game. Check out the full interview for more tidbits from the man in charge.To put it simply, if we take an example of a TV drama, if we’re just dragging out the story and people don’t want to watch it, then, of course, that’s not going to do us any good. Maybe for example, we get up to the fourth season. But then, okay, we decide to continue the fun until the sixth season or the eighth season maybe, and people would be really sick of it, you know? They really wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore. So, there was kind of a sense that we shouldn’t really drag this on for no reason at all. Because it really would be too much for the viewers to take.
