Final Fantasy 14's Yoshi-P has a lot of ideas for the MMO's future expansions: "I can do up to 9.0 without running dry"

Final Fantasy 14's director reveals that he has enough ideas in his pocket to last until update 9.0 at the very least. 

The evergreen MMO is currently gearing up to release update 7.0 alongside the warmly themed Dawntrail expansion in summer 2024, before moving on to several smaller 7.x patches. But director and producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida said he has enough juice to run past update 8.0 and into 9.0.

"I think I can do up to 9.0 without running dry," he revealed at last weekend's Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival in Tokyo, Japan, via an interview with Automaton. He continued to dish up that he's yet to share these ideas with the team, though Yoshi-P has apparently been "steering the wheel" in preparation for future plans. So you might see some teases in the upcoming patches and/or expansions. 

When asked about how he keeps the long-running game so fresh, the director adds that avoiding traditional MMO thinking is "the secret." Rather than looking to fellow massively multiplayer games, Yoshi-P and the team supposedly look for inspiration in other singleplayer Final Fantasy games and "taking everything that's good about console games and placing it into the MMO world."

That 9.0 eventuality is probably years away at this point, as the team is very much focused on the upcoming Dawntrail expansion, which we recently learned is reintroducing the Pictomancer class to the series. The expansion promises to kick start the game's next ten-year adventure with a new continent, a new level cap increase to 100, new dungeons, new cities, new gear, new enemies, new… you get the gist. 

Yoshi-P is also full of ideas for Final Fantasy 17, including a potential return to the series’ pixel art roots.