In Final Fantasy XIV, a cooperation event with Monster Hunter: World has started. Players can now battle the dragon Rathalos. We asked FF14 director Naoki Yoshida about the details of the collaboration.
An unusual event: The two games Final Fantasy XIV and Monster Hunter World differ massively from each other. The cooperation consisted of
- the monster Behemoth coming to Monster Hunter World, and the fight there functioning like a boss fight in Final Fantasy XIV
- the dragon Rathalos coming to Final Fantasy XIV – the fight there functioned according to the mechanics from Monster Hunter World
The special thing: Capcom and Square Enix saw the collaboration as a friendly duel. Who would best implement the other’s monster in their own game?
In the interview, Naoki Yoshida revealed what Final Fantasy XIV can learn from the collaboration with Monster Hunter World and what the challenges were.
Naoki Yoshida became a fan of Monster Hunter on the PS2
Rathalos left a lasting impression on Naoki Yoshida: “I had my first experience with Monster Hunter on the PS2. I was very confident in my abilities in action games, and I was convinced I could accomplish anything. And during my first encounter with Rathalos, I was beaten to the hospital. I couldn’t finish the quest.
I realized I needed to change my strategy in this fight. First, I made observations to see how I could first evade its attacks and then target its weak point. This allowed me to deal much more damage to the monster, cut off the tail, and break the wings, until I finally managed to defeat it.”
“That made it clear to me that while humans are a small fragile creature, they are still capable of defeating such a powerful dragon through observation and planning. It really opened my eyes. It is the unique quality that the Monster Hunter games offer, and it is the game design they take pride in.”
Gaming from a game developer’s perspective: “Therefore, Rathalos was the monster that showed me how the Monster Hunter games are made. I told Fujioka-san (director of MHW) about this, and he was so surprised and impressed by how I understood the mechanics and character of Rathalos.
And since then we have become good friends. When this FFXIV-MHW collaboration was proposed, I asked if it was okay for us to use Rathalos in our game. And Fujioka-san said, ‘Go ahead!'”
A duel between developers
Did the Monster Hunter World team make Behemoth “too good”? “As you know, Behemoth is now also in the world of Monster Hunter. And when we looked at the Behemoth that the MHW team created, we were surprised and shocked. The monster is so detailed – like a true remake of the FFXIV version. It was amazing.
And we thought, ‘We have to do something.’ Monster Hunter has its own rules, and Behemoth broke those rules. At that time, the ex-version with 8 players was almost complete. But we instructed the team to scale it down to 4 players. And if someone dies 3 times, then the whole group should wipe.
I showed this video to the development team because we have many Monster Hunter World players on the team. And when they saw the video, they said, ‘Oh yes, we need to change that.’ That is the reason for this adjustment.”
“In the Monster Hunter: World development team, there are also more than 20 Warriors of Light. Thus, there was a kind of competition to outdo each other. It was a kind of duel between Capcom and Square Enix, or rather Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter.”
Impact of Monster Hunter: World on FFXIV
Players break the rules of FFXIV: “We have observed how players have repeatedly developed new special strategies and group compositions for the Rathalos fight – such as four Warriors or four Summoners. They ignore the basic rules of Final Fantasy XIV regarding role distribution.
It is as if the players are looking for a way to have more fun in the fight, instead of following what the development team dictates. We expected this, and we are very happy about this development.”
The collaboration with Monster Hunter has retroactively influenced FFXIV: “Final Fantasy XIV does not have all the possibilities and actions that exist in Monster Hunter. For example, you cannot roll and then jump to evade an attack. We cannot do that because of system limitations. Therefore, we made the best of the extreme version of the fight under the given circumstances.”
“And through the reactions of FFXIV players, we saw that many of them had a lot of fun with the fight and that made us very happy. We do not have any concrete plans for heavy 4-man content in the future.
Through the descriptions of Rathalos and its body we received, we were able to implement breakable body parts into the game, for example. And we want to push the boundaries of gameplay in the future to express certain things. So if an opportunity arises, I would love to have a rematch with Monster Hunter.”
The interview with Naoki Yoshida was conducted in collaboration with Animania.
Get the rewards from the coop event with Monster Hunter: World with the help of our guide:
Rathalos EX: Guide to the new heavy trial in Final Fantasy XIV
