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Final Fantasy XIV Producer Appears as In-Game NPC to Thank Players, Let Them Become Phoenix
By Heath | August 27, 2023 at 4:44 pm
Ten years ago this very day, Final Fanatsy XIV: A Realm Reborn‘s, uh, realm was, I mean, reborn. Launched under the original, basic title of Final Fantasy XIV in 2010, the undercooked MMORPG was met with absolutely disastrous reviews and unprecedented fan backlash. It was simply and quite obviously not ready for release. Subsciption fees were paused due to undeniable lack of quality, as the dev team scrambled to make things right.
What ended up happening was akin to the end of the world. As we know it. And I feel fine. And I let myself type those REM lyrics just now because it did work out that way.
Director/Producer Naoyuki Yoshida and his team mashed the big Meteor button and blew up the world. The original servers shut down and the game relaunched with its updated title, with the A Realm Reborn bit referencing not just the story, but actual status as a game that was essentially scrapped and rebuilt.
You still here? Cool, you’re the kind of person Yoshida would like to thank.
The new limited-time quest, available to any player level 15 or higher, starts unremarkably, with people musing about how and why they chose to become adventurers. One lad does quite a bit of soul searching, aided by other NPCs and the player’s avatar, of course.
Then, suddenly, the player is whisked away to the deck of an airship, where a man starts talking about adventures and journeys and destiny and — anyway, turns out, boom, that’s Naoki Yoshida. He straight up says it, by his own actual name. He thanks you for playing and gets a little bit personal about his own struggles (likely referring to the development, past and ongoing, of such a huge project).
With a poignant end, players see white text on a black screen. After some closure scenes with NPC adventurer friends, players receive a special mount: Rising Phoenix, symbolic of the game’s own death and rebirth.
Oh and when you ride that shit, you don’t actually ride it, you become the phoenix itself.
Not gonna lie, after it all went down, strolling around town, hearing the Answers lyrics “Walk free… walk free” echo through the streets and taking in everything that had just happened, I got emotional.
This fucking game.
Topics: Final Fantasy XIV, Uncategorized