The chief of Final Fantasy XIV mentioned in an interview that he would like to improve the graphics of the MMORPG. This comes with several challenges.
What does the director of FFXIV say? While Square Enix’s flagship MMORPG undoubtedly looks beautiful, it is already 6 years old if counting from the reboot in 2013.
Director Yoshida would like to spice up and enhance his MMORPG. However, he mentions two fundamental issues that would arise if the team spontaneously decided to improve the graphics of Final Fantasy XIV.
This is the first problem: The high effort of such an upgrade would heavily impact the development schedule. The content cycle of Final Fantasy XIV is designed to release a new major update every 3.5 to 4 months. The development of all assets of the MMORPG is based on this schedule.
A graphic upgrade, for instance, in the style of Blade and Soul, would significantly increase the amount of work for the team.
It’s not just a matter of how many new people you hire to solve the problem. It’s quite a dilemma. If we seriously thought about adding a graphic upgrade to our current schedule, I would be very concerned about our patch cycle.
Director Yoshida
What about players on weak PCs?
This is the second problem: Another issue arises from the hardware that players use to play FFXIV. Many are using the PS4, which will soon be replaced by the upcoming PS5. Others play FFXIV on weaker PCs that could not handle a graphic upgrade.
Yoshida wants to avoid excluding players with weaker PCs accidentally, rendering them unable to play FFXIV.
We can’t just do [an upgrade] on a whim. We have to proceed meticulously and develop detailed plans. […] Of course, I would very much like to improve the graphics at some point in the future, but a lot of planning will be necessary for that.
Director Yoshida
The team is currently exhausted from the launch of the new expansion Shadowbringers, as Yoshida stated.
Therefore, they wanted to first complete the launch and then think about further options.
