Naoki Yoshida has said he was worried about taking on Final Fantasy 16 while continuing his work as producer and director on MMORPG Final Fantasy 14.
In a PlayStation Blog interview, the Final Fantasy 16 producer describes how he was honoured to be offered the opportunity to work on a single-player game in the series, but thought fans may criticise him.
“I said ‘Thanks, but I have my hands full with Final Fantasy 14, so let me think about it.’ I was truly honoured that the company would choose my section, Creative Business Unit 3, to be responsible for making the next entry in the FF series. But, as you probably know, I’m already the producer and director of Final Fantasy 14. I was worried that if I took on the directorship of 16, too, fans of both games would have good reason to believe I wasn’t giving either project my full attention,” said Yoshida.
Of course, the offer of Final Fantasy 16 follows the immense success of Final Fantasy 14 that Yoshida and Creative Business Unit 3 have generated.
And while there will certainly be an influence of 14 on 16, Yoshida is keen for the new game to have its own identity.
“[Final Fantasy 16] is its own entity, separate from [Final Fantasy 14] and the other games in the series, so you won’t find as many ‘tributes’ as you will in [Final Fantasy 14]. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some easter eggs, though! That said, [Final Fantasy 16]’s main focus will be on maintaining that series-wide feel of ‘playing a movie’ rather than drawing from past titles,” Yoshida told IGN.