“They had a music video that they had a chance to make, so they did the performance by themselves and wanted to bring that to the stage during Fan Fest,” says Yoshida. Soken and The Primals saw the meme and wanted to recreate it. One of the best moments of Fan Fest was a performance of A Long Fall by The Primals, with several staff members recreating a famous dancing meme on stage.Īs it turns out, Final Fantasy XIV composer Masayoshi Soken came up with the idea. Looking back, I think dealing with that was one of the major factors that affected this past year.”Įven though it has been challenging, the team has been able to find many moments of joy - and are happy to share them with the community. It’s totally understandable that people go at their own pace. And I totally understand, or I feel like I understand, those people. “But some people required the time to get adjusted, and they may not have had as high a motivation to keep moving forward. In this pandemic, we just need to accommodate and just switch gears and press forward,’” he says. “Ideally, people would be able to switch quickly and be encouraged whenever people are like, ‘Oh, well, there’s nothing we can do. Some were quicker than others, and Yoshida’s role as a leader means he’s had to be conscious of this. But people’s feelings, and how they adapted to the pandemic, couldn’t be rushed. Changing the workflow to accommodate the circumstances, updating the rules by which the team abides - that was all doable. Perhaps the biggest challenge has been its effects on the team’s mentality. And despite the consistency and quality of the work players see, the ongoing pandemic has proved difficult for the development team. Fan Fest is just as much, if not even more so, about the people involved with the title. But Final Fantasy XIV players adore Fan Fest for much more than just the game. The event had plenty to share about Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, the new expansion coming out in the fall, and the future of the MMORPG. “It just exceeds anything that I had imagined.” “Looking at what I’m doing now, it’s even more busy,” he tells Fanbyte in an interview following the 2021 Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival, an annual convention held digitally for the first time earlier this month.
More than once, he felt he was facing his biggest challenge yet. Since taking up the mantle as Final Fantasy XIV ‘ s director and producer, there have been many difficult and busy moments in Naoki Yoshida’s life.