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Many video game fans have negatively responded to Square Enix’s earlier statement that heavily implied the introduction of blockchain-based features to its games, including NFTs or non-fungible tokens. But “Final Fantasy 14” director and producer Naoki Yoshida has recently stated that the game is simply not designed for NFTs.
Yoshida appeared in the latest “Letter from the Producer” livestream for “Final Fantasy 14,” where one of the questions from fans was unsurprisingly about NFTs. “We don’t intend on incorporating any sort of NFT element in the game at this point,” Yoshida said (via Fanbyte). “If anybody is worried or concerned about it, I can clearly state at this time that we do not have any intentions to incorporate that into the game.”
Yoshida’s statement should be a welcome assurance, especially among fans who are against seeing NFTs proliferate in their favorite games. In Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda’s New Year message, where NFTs and blockchain games were some of the major talking points. In the same livestream, Yoshida confirmed they saw the widespread negative feedback to Square Enix’s earlier statement and that “there might be a little bit of sensitivity and nervousness around the topic.”
The “Final Fantasy 14” producer/director added that he wants to have another venue to talk more about NFTs in video games “that is completely unrelated to FFXIV” and expressed that he is not totally against the concept. But he then reiterated that they would need another “specific game design” to welcome NFTs and, as he mentioned, that will not be “Final Fantasy 14.”
While Yoshida says he sees potential in using NFTs, he told “Final Fantasy 14” fans there is no reason to worry because they are not coming to the game.
Yoshida has also discussed their plans for “Final Fantasy 14” patch 7.0 in the same livestream that ran for more than five hours. The director confirmed significant graphics, character appearance, and background visual updates are all in the works for the game. But with these changes, one of the bullet points indicated that the game’s minimum system requirements will also have to change.
