We already know that Final Fantasy XIV’s development team and Naoki Yoshida plan to keep the MMO going for at least another decade. That is, of course, unless something goes wrong in the next ten years. Nevertheless, the team is currently working hard for the much-awaited 7.0 expansion while releasing the rest of the post-Endwalker content so that players have more reason to farm FFXIV Gil. What makes Final Fantasy XIV unique is its ability to blend new elements with those that already exist in the Final Fantasy universe. And apparently, Yoshi-P plans to bring more original features to the game in the future.
No Choice But to Concoct Something New
In an interview by Square Enix, Yoshida stated that they have no other choice but to develop brand new jobs – jobs that haven’t appeared in any of the Final Fantasy games before. He then proceeded to speak about how much Final Fantasy XIV was inspired by its older brother, Square Enix’s previous MMO, Final Fantasy XI. Both games shared the same elements; this includes jobs like the Dragoon, Samurai, Dancer, and Scholar. Other jobs from FFXIV were inspired by other games from the FF universe, including the Red Mage, which is now considered a staple in the franchise.
In the latest expansion, Endwalker, we saw the first original jobs joining the game. This was the Sage and the Reaper. Both jobs were not present in any other games from the franchise – they were unique and exclusive to FFXIV (at least for the time being). According to Yoshi-P, this trend will likely continue in future expansions, mainly because most of the jobs from FFXI are already a part of FFXIV.
More Jobs, But At What Cost?
Naoki discussed how he felt MMOs needed to introduce new jobs with each expansion, but there’s a cost with everything in life. The development team now faces the challenge of making these additions meaningful. From a system perspective, if the number of jobs is fixed and well-balanced, there’s no urgency to add more since it would cause a stir in the community. However, Yoshida further commented that there’s always a need to add more jobs to keep the gameplay fresh and new.
Akihiko Matsui, the producer for Final Fantasy XI, also chimed in. He agrees that it’s challenging to come up with a new job. The team can’t just release a superior version of a job, nor can they put out one that offers the same experience as an existing one – this would defeat the purpose of adding a new job in the first place.
According to Matsui, it’s a “rule of design” to add a playable race or a new job as the main feature of a new expansion. Based on what he and Yoshida said, we can expect fresh, never-before-seen, and extraordinary jobs at some point.
No Hints for Now
Neither Yoshi-P nor Matsui gave any hint about what kind of jobs we can expect to come up in the future. Currently, they’re more concerned about the PvP job balancing for the MMO’s PvP mode. Since the team is almost running out of class references to make use for Final Fantasy XIV, the only thing we do know is that we’re going to get something unfamiliar.
Can We Expect New Jobs in the Next Expansion
Based on the Final Fantasy XIV roadmap that Square Enix shared, many things are still to come, but if Naoki and Mitsui are trusted, we can expect a new job or two to come to the next expansion. The only problem is that there’s no clue when this will arrive.
For now, we only know that FFXIV will receive its first graphics overhaul when version 7.0 arrives. It’ll increase the game’s minimum requirements, but Square Enix stated that they will still try to accommodate as wide a variety of hardware specs as possible. Just don’t expect it to look like Horizon Forbidden West – at least, that was what Naoki Yoshida said. Specific graphical upgrades for FFXIV include:
- Better lighting and shadow effects
- Improvements to fog and other ambient effects
- Lighting system and animation updates
- More environmental objects
- Higher resolution textures (skin, hair, gear, etc.)
- Higher resolution and varied auto-generated plant life
- Improved material qualities (metal, fabric, skin, etc.)
The Discussion for What the New Jobs Are Still Open
Whenever you hear “expansion,” you can imagine a few things. Expansions typically mean new content, such as new dungeons to explore, new quests to farm FFXIV Gil, and new gear for your character. For now, the discussion on what the new job or class will be for Final Fantasy XIV remains open. But sooner or later, Yoshi-P and his team will hopefully divulge the juicy details.