Naoki Yoshida, who is known as Yoshi-P in the community of Final Fantasy XIV, has been secretly demoted at Square Enix. He is no longer a director, fulfilling a long-held wish of his.
Why does he have more time for the game? Yoshida has been in the director position at Square Enix since 2018. Only 8 people in the company hold this position. They coordinate teams and oversee time and resource management in the development of video games.
However, as Square Enix announced a few days ago, the number of director positions will be reduced from 8 to 4. Yoshi-P is among those affected. Nevertheless, he will remain at Square Enix after his dismissal as director.
Starting from May 2025, he will no longer serve as director, but only as an executive officer. This means Yoshida is being demoted in his position. But that is exactly what he wants.
Naoki Yoshida is primarily known in relation to Final Fantasy XIV:
Yoshida wants to make more games
Why is this his wish? In an interview in 2023, he revealed that he actually no longer wants the position (via Dot Esports). He has tried to give up the director position, but Square Enix did not want to grant his request.
The director position takes so much time that Yoshida has very little left to work on Final Fantasy XIV. Yoshida stated he would “have more fun just developing games”.
Yoshi-P does not understand why his colleagues want to remain in the director position. He suspects that they want “to make a lot of money,” but according to him, that can also be done as a game developer.
What does this mean for the MMORPG? Yoshi-P will finally have more time to focus on the development of Final Fantasy XIV due to his demotion. This means that future updates and content of the game will receive more input from Yoshida, which can be either good or bad.
It’s possible that there will be even tougher challenges in the MMORPG in the future. In a previous interview, Yoshida revealed that Dawntrail will feature more challenging content. If the developer has more time to incorporate his ideas into Final Fantasy XIV, it could mean even more difficult challenges.
Already, Dawntrail proves that there is a lot to do in the endgame. What you can do after completing the story is detailed by MeinMMO in a comprehensive guide: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail: Endgame – Chaotic alliance raids, trials, treasure maps, and more
