Final Fantasy XI Developers On The Possibilities Of A PS4 Port Or An Offline Version

Square Enix’s first MMORPG Final Fantasy XI has been back on the radar after new screenshots of its smartphone reboot recently surfaced, but what about a PS4 port or an offline version? Producer Akihiko Matsui and director Yoji Fujito had some interesting things to share in an interview in this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine. [Thanks, Hachima.]

Here are some highlights:

• Now that they’re only managing the PC version, the team size has shrunk. The remaining staff felt that the world of Vana’diel would die if they didn’t continue working on it.

• As for future content updates, the Final Fantasy XI team wants to wisely use what they have and work on content that hasn’t been played recently or places that haven’t been visited in a while, and make them more lively.

• Since the development cost for MMORPGs is higher than what most people expect, they wanted to make it clear that they will not turn to crowdfunding.

• There are many voices of those who want an offline version of Final Fantasy XI; however, moving Final Fantasy XI to modern hardware would require building and repairing technologies from scratch, and doing so for the sheer volume of the game would be costly.

• As for an HD remaster version, it’s an issue about development environment. Since Final Fantasy XI’s content is still being developed using materials for PS2, making the data to construct Vana’diel for current generation consoles would require making development tools from scratch. It’s also a very unique format so they can’t make a simple port by importing the data to the development tools, even with existing resources.

• There are plans to add more to the story. The team currently has members studying cutscene tools, so they might be able to start adding new story soon.

• The team’s current plan is to bolster Final Fantasy XI’s existing content.

• It is easier said than done to “simply increase damage output” for job adjustments. They basically can’t take requests that don’t have any tradeoff elements of some kind. The developers say that it makes things a lot easier to work on when they receive proper feedback on the forums.

• There are plans to expand on endgame content and Master Trials. Square Enix plans to share more later, and hope they’ll be able to talk about it soon.

• There are currently no plans to expand on Omens and Esutcheons.

Final Fantasy XI is available on PC. A reboot is currently in the works for smartphones, and you can check out its latest in our previous report.