Final Fantasy XIV is my favorite MMORPG ever, and it’s largely thanks to how active Square Enix has been with its player community. Director Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida has always taken fans’ feedback to heart, proving time and time again that Final Fantasy XIV has one of the most active development teams around. Following his recent appearance at the FFXIV Fan Festival 2023, Yoshi-P has discussed the game’s upcoming expansion and what he personally wants to see implemented as playable content in the MMO.
During a roundtable interview following the keynote presentation and Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail reveal at this year’s Fan Fest, Yoshi-P revealed that the game’s developers had been planning to integrate playable mini-game versions of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster collection into FFXIV. He stated that their consideration of such a feature had come up following the collection’s release. The director asked about the Remaster bundle, “wouldn’t it be cool if we can play that in the Gold Saucer?”
Unfortunately, the devs never managed to find a way to properly implement the mini-games, with Yoshi-P citing the new Remaster collection being “middleware” as the primary reason. “So because it’s running on middleware,” he says, “you’d have to build another system that can play back the middleware inside the game.” Basically, “it’s like you’re building a system of a game to play a system of a game.”
Yoshi-P refers to it as “just this weird configuration” when describing why it hadn’t worked. Fortunately for us Pixel Remaster fans, though, the developers haven’t yet scrapped the idea. In the interview, Yoshi-P joked that a “super programmer” up for the task could send in an application to Square Enix and the developers would gladly accept it.
With his recent analogy where he went into detail about a Final Fantasy XIV TV show, I’m choosing to remain hopeful about any possibilities no matter how silly they may seem. This is Yoshi-P we’re talking about after all, and besides, the man did say they’re open to applications! So, if you think you’d be able to get us some pixel-perfect new Gold Saucer mini-games, send that resume in Square Enix’s direction.
If your favorite thing about FFXIV is the amount of content you can play through with your friends, have a look at some of our other favorite multiplayer games. For a less social gameplay experience with just as much choice and story, you can alternatively browse through a few of the best RPG games out there right now.