Naoki Yoshida

Final Fantasy14's massive graphical overhaul isn't simply to bring in new players, says game director and producer Naoki Yoshida.

Final Fantasy 14's producer and director, Naoki Yoshida, has explained three reasons for the game's upcoming graphical update, assuring players that the popular MMO is here to stay. With the new Dawntrail expansion on the horizon, exciting things are coming to Final Fantasy 14, including an exciting graphical overhaul of the game.

Final Fantasy 14’s upcoming graphics update is one of the, if not the, most anticipated changes taking place in when Dawntrail launches this summer, if not either of the new classes or newly-playable female Hrothgar. Thankfully, it seems the feeling of relief will be mutual between both players and its developers responsible for the game’s already-beloved visuals. 

In December last year, Square Enix announced two expansions for Final Fantasy 16, with the first, Echoes of the Fallen being shadow-dropped at the time, and the second, The Rising Tide, set for a Spring 2024 launch, and with Spring not too far away now, new details on the latter are set to be shared next month.

Square Enix announced that the second DLC for Final Fantasy XVI, The Rising Tide, will be unveiled at a PAX East 2024 panel scheduled to take place at the Albatross Theatre on Friday, March 22, at 8:30 AM Pacific Time or 11:30 AM Eastern Time. Producer Naoki Yoshida, DLC Director Takeo Kujiraoka, and Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox will be on stage to talk about The Rising Tide. The panel will also be streamed on the official Twitch channel of the convention, allowing everyone to check it out comfortably from home.

Square Enix will soon give fans more news aboutFinal Fantasy 14: Dawntrail and Final Fantasy 16: The Rising Tide, as the company will appear in two panels at the upcoming PAX East 2024 convention in Boston. Square Enix stated that its Final Fantasy 14panel will be hosted on Saturday, March 23, and the Final Fantasy 16 panel will start on March 22.

Final Fantasy 16 actor Ben Starr has said he’d like to reprise his role as Clive Rosfield.

A Final Fantasy 14 live-action TV series is now confirmed to be «dead» due to the «size and scale needed to do it right».

Final Fantasy 14 is giving all players a free Fantasia during Dawntrail to help them adapt to the new graphics update coming in the expansion. While the exact details are still being worked out, all Final Fantasy 14 fans can expect to get one of these cash shop items for free later this year.

Final Fantasy 14's new feline momma has quickly become a fan favorite, as is tradition with new FF14 characters, mainly because she channels her inner crying cat meme.

A new Xbox Wire post announced that the Final Fantasy 14 open beta for Xbox Series X|S is live, but Xbox quickly backtracked and provided some clarification. The Final Fantasy 14 open beta is not ready yet for Xbox, as the company reveals that an error was made while sharing the news.

During an interview with Square Enix’s Naoki Yoshida, the Final Fantasy XIV director and XVI producer has revealed that he thinks it might be better for a younger generation of developers to pick up the mantle and work on Final Fantasy XVII. 

Following the first day of the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival in Tokyo this month, director and producer of the franchise Naoki Yoshida did a brief but captivating interview giving insight on where the game might be without him around . 

Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida, better known amongst the Final Fantasy community as Yoshi-P, made some interesting comments regarding Final Fantasy XVII when speaking to former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida on the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Game Maker’s Notebook podcast.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has suggested that the next game in the series could be helmed by a younger generation of creators.

In a recent interview with the former President of SIE Worldwide Studios Shohei Yoshida, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida stated that younger developers should head a potential Final Fantasy 17 over the old guard. Though the interview touched upon the development of Final Fantasy 16, Naoki Yoshida said that nothing has been decided as far as the franchise's future goes.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida—known among the Final Fantasy 14 fan base as Yoshi-P—believes that the next mainline game in the franchise should be made by someone new, and is equipped to take on “challenges that suit today’s world”.

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You might have noticed a certain trend across two of the “Big Three” video game publishers in our gaming world. That trend is that both Sony and Microsoft are open to having their big “exclusive titles” come out not only on their most recent systems, the PS5 and the Xbox Series X/S but for their past ones on the PS4 and the Xbox One. It’s a curious choice but a logical one, given real-world circumstances. However, those who have played the “past-gen” versions know that the quality isn’t always there, which is why Final Fantasy XVI stuck with its next-gen version alone.

Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail is the next expansion coming to the incredibly popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Since its official announcement back in July 2023, details have been drip-fed from developer Creative Business Unit 3 and the game’s in-person Fan Festival events in Las Vegas, London, and, most recently, Tokyo.

The latest IAS Game Maker's Notebook Podcast (embedded in the full article below) is a chat between Sony's head of independent development Shuhei Yoshida and Square Enix producer, designer and director Naoki Yoshida, one of the big fish behind Final Fantasy 14 and Final Fantasy 16. In a lengthy discussion of the latter game, the two Yoshidas chew over the familiar topic of where Final Fantasy should go next. According to Naoki Yoshida, it might be time for an injection of new blood.

Nothing has been decided regarding Final Fantasy XVII yet, but there's a very good chance it will be a very different game from its predecessor, judging from some recent statements.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has said it might be time for a younger generation to lead the franchise and helm Final Fantasy 17.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida, AKA Yoshi-P, has floated two very early ideas for Final Fantasy 17: a hybrid of real-time and more traditional turn-based combat, and another that would bring the series back to its pixel art roots.

Final Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida, lovingly referred to as Yoshi-P, says the secret to keeping his MMO fresh is to treat it like it isn't an MMO at all.

Now that Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail's full trailer has finally released, the game's first on-screen hrothgar lady has stepped into the spotlight. It turns out that her English voice actor has also been playing the game for years, as revealed in a tweet yesterday.

Final Fantasy XIV (or Final Fantasy 14) has continued to delight MMORPG fans for over a decade with four expansion packs released. Now the fifth expansion, Dawntrail, is nearer than ever before!

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

A new job is coming to Final Fantasy 14 with this summer’s Dawntrail expansion: the Pictomancer, a magic user who casts their spells with a paintbrush and palette. Square Enix and FF14 producer/director Naoki Yoshida revealed the Pictomancer at this weekend’s Fan Festival 2024 in Tokyo alongside other new additions to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Seemingly not content with swallowing up Animal Crossing and spitting out its own farm-and-craft minigame, Final Fantasy 14 has apparently now guzzled down Starfield and is readying to unleash its own way to sink dozens of hours into galactic wandering.

Final Fantasy 14 devs have previewed its upcoming graphical update, and expressed regret over the lighting of dark-skinned characters.

Final Fantasy 14's third and final Fan Festival of the Endwalker expansion just took place in Tokyo over the weekend. While there was a surprise lack of release date for upcoming expansion Dawntrail, we did get to see tons of neat stuff: female hrothgar, artsy class Pictomancer, and a bizarro cyberpunk world that has me wondering just what the hell the Warrior of Light is getting up to on his summer vacation.

Square Enix has revealed Final Fantasy XIV will be introducing two temporary jobs: the Pictomancer and the Beastmaster.

Anyone who’s been anticipating the release of Final Fantasy 14 on Xbox Series X|S doesn’t have much longer to wait, as director and producer Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P) has confirmed that the open beta will begin next month. 

Final Fantasy 14’s next expansion, Dawntrail, is still several months away. Those who want new content sooner can look forward to an update next week. Patch 6.55, Growing Light Part 2, will be available on January 16th for PS4, PS5 and PC.

The second new class for Final Fantasy 14 Online's upcoming expansion, Dawntrail, has been confirmed to be Pictomancer.

Square Enix has debuted the latest job coming to Final Fantasy 14.

The Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival is still ongoing in Tokyo, and while its next expansion, Dawntrail, has received tons of new details, a release date isn’t one of them. Producer/director Naoki Yoshida explained why on the first day, confirming that there’s an internal date but that the team wants to ensure it’s as “fine-tuned” as possible before sharing.

Despite the lack of a paid expansion since the launch of Endwalker, Square Enix’s critically acclaimed MMO Final Fantasy 14 is going strong with over 30 million players. Its last major milestone was 2022, with over 27 million registered players announced.

Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival in Tokyo is currently underway and its keynote revealed such exciting things as the full Dawntrail trailer, a new Pictomancer job, and a look at the female Hrothgar playable race in action.

As the team that handles Final Fantasy 14, Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit 3 (or CBU 3) has a special place in the hearts of Final Fantasy fans, and in 2023, the studio also released its first mainline single player Final Fantasy game with Final Fantasy 16. Looking ahead though, what does the future have in store for the team? Apparently, it could be something entirely new.

After being revealed at the Las Vegas Final Fantasy Fest in July, and then detailed at the London Fan Fest in October, the Final Fantasy XVI crossover event is scheduled to hit the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV in Early April. We’ve known the event was in the works for a while now, but this is the first time we’re seeing an actual release timeframe. The event will launch with the current expansion, Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, ahead of the release of the new one Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail.

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail launches with two new jobs, and the Final Fantasy VI-inspired Pictomancer joins Viper this summer as the second DPS addition. If you were hoping to discover when exactly during Fan Fest, sorry — you’ll have to wait a bit. However, FFXIV Patch 6.55 launches this month, on January 16.

Get in, nerds: We’re going planet-hopping. That’s essentially the premise of the new casual content, “Cosmic Exploration,” announced for the new Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail expansion. 

After fans held their breath for months, the Final Fantasy 14 team has announced the new class for the upcoming Dawntrail expansion: the Pictomancer.  

At long last, the Final Fantasy 14 team has reached the final live event of this season in Japan, the FFXIV Fan Festival in Tokyo, where it’s likely to receive a warm, excited welcome from plenty of excited fans in its home country. It’s also the last in-person event before the new Dawntrail expansion drops sometime this summer. 

Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida has revealed that many highly requested features coming after the launch of Final Fantasy XI: Dawntrail.

In just a few short days, Final Fantasy fans will be able to take part in the Fan Festival 2024 in Tokyo, and the producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV had a few season’s greetings to send the player’s way. 

In an interview with a Japanese educational television program and originally reported in English by Japanese creator Genki , Naoki Yoshida explained that he believes cloud gaming could end “console wars” and make games accessible to all players. He hopes that players don’t need to worry about having specific pieces of gaming hardware like consoles in order to play what they’d like. 

Square Enix has revealed the schedule for the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival of 2024, taking place in Tokyo. The event will be available for live-streaming for those unable to attend the event in person. 

Final Fantasy XVI is an epic adventure in its own right, but fans hungry for more Clive and company might be disappointed to learn the development team has already disbanded. Aside from a small team working on the upcoming DLC The Rising Tide, the evocatively named Square Enix Creative Business Unit III, helmed by Naoki Yoshida, has already moved on to whatever comes next.

It's the second to last week before we set down our pickaxes, shoulder our packs and embark on that greatest adventure of all: holiday. The Maw tends to be at low ebb over the Xmas period, because it has a violent allergy to festive cheer. But for the moment, it still clamours for News.

Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are all timed PlayStation exclusives, but they may never make it to Xbox, as exclusivity for Square Enix titles is apparently going to get worse in the future.

It’s no shock that people are looking forward to diving into the upcoming PC version of Final Fantasy 16. One of this year’s biggest RPGs, its dark fantasy story has been a huge hit with both series fans and complete newcomers since it launched for PlayStation 5 back in June.

With Echoes of the Fallen available forFinal Fantasy 16, Square Enix is working towards the game’s second paid DLC – The Rising Tide. It’s out in Spring 2024, and as seen in the recent trailer, it features Leviathan as a new Eikon battle. While the first DLC is shorter, the second promises ten hours of gameplay, per a Famitsu interview.

PC players planning to play Final Fantasy 16 should consider an SSD «a must».

The first paid DLC for Final Fantasy 16, Echoes of the Fallen, shadow-dropped during The Game Awards for PS5. The Rising Tide is next and launches in Spring 2024, but after that, what’s next for the team? Will there be a follow-up or spin-off to the action RPG?

Amid the madness of announcements at The Game Awards 2023, Square Enix has reaffirmed when the PS5 exclusivity periods for Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will end. As spotted by @IdleSloth84_, the trailer for Final Fantasy 16’s upcoming DLC, Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide, has noted that the base game isn’t available on other formats until December 31st, 2023.

The PC version of Final Fantasy XVI may require an SSD, producer Naoki Yoshida suggested in a new interview.

The first part of Final Fantasy 16's DLC is out tonight: Echoes of the Fallen.

Back in September, Square Enix confirmed that two paid DLC expansions for Final Fantasy 16 were in development — but we're still waiting on any concrete details. However, producer Naoki Yoshida did state that more information would be heading our way before the end of the year — and we're obviously now in December.

Final Fantasy 15's director Hajime Tabata has revealed why he left Square Enix in 2018. 

Final Fantasy's founding figurehead was so obsessed with Final Fantasy 14 last year that at one point he was playing it for 12 hours every day.

Final Fantasy XVI director Hiroshi Takai revealed at this year’s PlayStation Partner Awards that two DLC episodes are on the way for the game.

Final Fantasy 16 players are getting their hopes up for a DLC reveal this month off the back of an actor's tweet.

The Final Fantasy 14 community has met up with composer Masayoshi Soken's in-game character - or, rather, who they believe to be Soken's in-game character.

As technology advances, it’s common to see games getting visually better, whether in remasters, remakes or a graphical update. But there also has to be consideration taken into whether or not part of the atmosphere or vision of the original is lost in the march of progress. These considerations feel ever more important in a forthcoming graphical update for Square Enix’sFinal Fantasy XIV, set to arrive in next year’s 7.0 update and its Dawntrail expansion.

Final Fantasy XI is still going after 21 years, though in a version of maintenance mode that still includes monthly refreshes and occasional special new content. Some of that new content is on the way, including a crossover Alliance raid with Final Fantasy XIV ’s Dawntrail expansion.

Final Fantasy 14 and Fall Guys are two of the least compatible titles you could pick for potential crossovers, but director Naoki Yoshida has somehow managed it. Head on over to The Gold Saucer between now and the end of the year, and you'll be able to take on various obstacle courses inspired by Fall Guys, all in an effort to win crowns and grab yourself some limited-time Fall Guys-themed rewards.

Over the weekend, during Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival in London, the MMO's director Naoki Yoshida said he'd like to make an MMO as chaotic as Ultima Online, but it would have to be outside of FFXIV.

Final Fantasy 14's London Fanfest 2023 might be over, but it's still produced a lot of great moments—like confirmation that Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy franchise, has cleared some of the hardest raids in the game.

Final Fantasy 14's producer and director, Naoki Yoshida (known within the MMO's community as Yoshi-P), was moved to tears after receiving some wholesome words from the founding father of the series.

During the recent Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival in London, producer Naoki Yoshida unveiled the first of the two new Jobs coming to the game in its upcoming expansion, Dawntrail. The Job, named Viper, will be melee DPS, and can be seen in action in a new video below.

Final Fantasy XIV’s achievements are no joke, as proved by the 10 years it took the first player to earn every achievement in the MMO. But director and producer Naoki Yoshida is up for making even more difficult achievements, if the achievement-hunting pro is game for the challenge.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

In a press conference during London's Fan Festival, PC Gamer talked with Final Fantasy 14's director and producer Naoki Yoshida. Yoshida said that he would love to do a collaboration with the Diablo franchise. Big Diablo 4 Cow Level Update Unreleased Zones Spotted in Diablo 4 Steam Version Final Fantasy 14 has done many cross-promotions—from Yo-Kai Watch to Fall Guys and many more. Seemingly unconventional crossovers are not off the table as proven by the Fall Guys crossover. Naoki Yoshida is a huge Blizzard fan and one of his dream collaborations would be with the Diablo franchise. Yoshida added that a collaboration is tricky due to Diablo's dark themes and graphic depictions.

So, if you haven’t heard, some big things are going down in Final Fantasy XIV. Not only is a new expansion coming that will help start a new story and give players even more things to do, but a new collaboration will make Square Enix fans happy. Specifically, a collaboration with the most recent entry from the beloved RPG series will happen as Clive Rosfield arrives in the game and joins the Warriors of Light! Even more specifically, there’s a questline that is called “The Path Infernal,” and it’s there that you can meet Clive and battle monsters that appear to be like Eikons. You can watch the reveal trailer for that below.

Final Fantasy 14’s was hilariously griefed in-game by none other than the series’ creator himself. 

Final Fantasy's founding father, Hironobu Sakaguchi, is a proud FF14 devotee, and that's precisely why he doesn't want to work on any content for the critically acclaimed MMO.