Dawntrail, a “starting point for the next 10 years”

It’s a Friday night in June in Tokyo and Naoki Yoshida has plans for the weekend.

“Calm down, rest.”

Pretty normal, you might think. But Yoshida-san, the director of Final Fantasy 14 (FF14), knows that it will probably be his last chance to relax for a while.

When he speaks to BBC Newsbeat, Dawntrail, the latest expansion for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is just a week away from being released.

Following a “disastrous” launch in 2010, FF14 has become the most profitable title in the franchise’s history, according to publisher Square Enix.

The game changed things so much that the servers struggled to keep up with demand when the previous expansion, Endwalker, launched in December 2021.

It’s not the only change since FF14 first came out. The industry, and Japan’s place in it, has also changed over the past decade.

Final Fantasy is a massive cultural export for the country, and Square Enix has said it wants to focus more on the “global market” and its fans around the world.

There’s evidence of this approach in Dawntrail, a significant moment for Yoshida-san and his team, and one he calls “the starting point for the next 10 years of Final Fantasy 14.”

Endwalker closes a decade-long story arc and Dawntrail inaugurates a new saga. It also adds a graphical revamp to the game, along with new character classes and other features.

It’s billed as a “summer vacation,” and the action takes place in the sunny, Latin American-inspired region of Tural from the world of FF14.

Yoshida-san says that Final Fantasy games had previously been inspired by Europe and East Asia and his team wanted to try something different.

He says Central and South America offer a “huge area” with “a lot of history” to draw from.

Authentic representation of other cultures is something Square Enix has been criticized for in the past, and its recent games have made efforts to address this.

Yoshida-san says he has always considered FF14 to be a “global game,” but agrees that the influence of social media has grown and “it’s become easier for people to come together and make their voices heard.”

He admits that “there are risks” in representing other cultures, but his team has made an effort “to learn about the culture, to read the texts that are available.”

“The world is diverse,” he says.

“There are people who have many different value sets, many different religions, and many different senses of relationships.

“That’s why I think it’s very important that we understand those points.”

The Final Fantasy games have always blended Japanese sensibilities with Western influences, but some have suggested that the series has had an identity crisis recently.

Yoshida-san told Newsbeat that Square Enix makes “50% to 80%” of its profits from “overseas fans,” who are “really important to consider when we create the game.”

But he believes that a balance must be found.

“We were born in Japan and raised in Japan. So we were brought up with parts of Japanese culture,” he says.

“So if we focus too much on foreign audiences, we don’t have that background and that context.

“If we focus so much on foreign audiences, then anything we do will not be successful.”

However, Yoshida-san says developers can’t live in a bubble.

“I think knowing the world is very important for us in our development,” he says.

There has recently been another significant change for Final Fantasy.

Square Enix produces games for many platforms, but has a history of striking exclusive deals to ensure some titles only appear on certain consoles.

Sales of two recent PlayStation 5 exclusive games, Final Fantasy 16 (FF16) and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, have reportedly been disappointing in Japan.

Following its launch, CEO Takashi Kiryu told investors The company would “aggressively pursue a multi-platform strategy” to bring its games to more machines.

Yoshida-san is familiar with the exclusivity arguments, having released the long-awaited Xbox version of FF14 this year.

It’s a sign of a broader shift in the industry, where companies are becoming less selective about where their games appear.

In Japan, figures suggest that gamers are opting to play on mobile devices or on the Nintendo Switch, which recently… It became the country’s best-selling console of all time..

“We want to have players regardless of the device they are playing on,” says Yoshida-san.

“We want you to play our game and have everyone connect and participate and then play together in the same world.”

Yoshida-san says Xbox CEO Phil Spencer “devoted a lot of his time” to bringing FF14 to Xbox.

“Thanks to their hard work, I’m super, super happy that we were able to pull this off,” he says.

“But of course there are still platforms.”

When asked what they might be, Yoshida-san does not hesitate.

“Of course,” he says. “Needless to say, that would be Nintendo’s platform.”

“I’m sure people are waiting for the answer to that question.”

For now, however, there is a more pressing issue on Yoshida-san’s mind: giving Dawntrail “the best launch possible.”

After the weekend break, he plans to be busy.

“I’m sure there will be sleepless nights, with our eyes only focused on the state of the service,” he says.

Endwalker’s rocky beginnings will be on players’ minds, but Yoshida-san says he’s not one to dwell too much on the past.

“That’s what’s already happened,” he says. “And that’s not really going to get us forward.”

“Looking to the future is our job.”

Despite this, Yoshida-san says there is one important thing to remember.

“The players who stayed with us, [who] placed their trust in the Final Fantasy 14 team.

“They really served as a source of motivation,” he says.

“They really pushed us to get to where we are and we wouldn’t be here without them.

“With them in mind, we really want to do what’s best for the Final Fantasy 14 community.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 Monday to Friday – or listen again here.