HomeNews
Final Fantasy XIV’s Yoshi-P would like to make an MMO as chaotic and free as Ultima Online, but it would break FF14Naoki Yoshida was “shocked” when he played the influential PC classic
Naoki Yoshida was “shocked” when he played the influential PC classic
Image credit:Broadsword
Image credit:Broadsword
The director ofFinal Fantasy XIVhas said he’d love to channel the chaos and freedom of nineties MMO godparentUltima Onlineinto his own game - but it couldn’t be FF14 itself, as the unbridled chaos would ‘break’ its players.
Top 12 Best Multiplayer Games to Play on PCWatch on YouTube
Top 12 Best Multiplayer Games to Play on PC
“Each MMO has its own kind of focus of appeal - and if we were just to implement that in XIV, as is, it wouldn’t really work,” Naoki Yoshida said when asked which MMOs he looked to for inspiration at this year’sFinal FantasyFan Festival in London. “We need to arrange it - we need to tune it to 14 - and that’s something that we are doing.”
“If I was to answer about something that I think wouldn’t work out if implemented in 14, I look back on the early days of Ultima Online,” Yoshida recalled. “That was something [that] when I played, it kind of really shocked me. Back in the early stages of Ultima Online, there was a sense of chaos but also a sense of freedom.”
“I would like to create something maybe close to that sense,” Yoshida said of Ultima Online. That would need to be a new game, though, as the developer accepted: “But if I implemented it in XIV, I think it would probably break the community.”
Breaking an existing community is one thing, but Yoshida was also unsure of the appeal of an MMO where complete chaos reigns - despite the popularity of lawlesssurvival gameslikeRustandArk: Survival Evolved. (And the fact thatUltima Online is still going, almost 30 years later.)
“I think if you create that kind of MMO now, it probably wouldn’t sell,” Yoshida suggested.
