Final Fantasy 14 has a lot of neat nods and callbacks to the rest of the series. From the Final Fantasy 3-inspired Crystal Tower raid series to crossover events with entries like Final Fantasy 13 and 15, the MMO serves as a great homage to Square Enix’s library of RPG classics.
Upcoming expansion Dawntrail is already starting work on weaving in a ton of references, too. We know that the alliance raid series, Echoes of Vana’diel, will be focusing on MMO predecessor Final Fantasy 11. There’s also the allied tribe Pelupelu, who are pulled straight out of Final Fantasy 10.
There’s always room for more references though, and Final Fantasy 14 hasn’t quite reached its saturation point for them yet. I was able to speak with director and producer Naoki Yoshida recently, and I decided to ask if there are any plans to include more nods to the series in the future.
“We have many plans and ideas, and will continue to incorporate the essence of various titles from the series to serve as a ‘theme park of the FF series,'” Yoshida said. When it comes to specific entries that he’s dying to make more use of, his response isn’t all too surprising.
“Simply put, my personal wish is to approach [Final Fantasy 7] in earnest, but with the FF7 Remake series in development, I don’t want to get in their way. I would be very happy if we could do something together after the Remake series is completed, and I’d like to ask players to support the FF7 Remake series as well so that this can happen as soon as possible!”
It makes sense that Yoshida would want to crib a little more from what is arguably one of Square Enix’s most famous games. There’s still plenty of Final Fantasy 7 stuff knocking around in FF14, mind you: The Manderville Gold Saucer is heavily inspired by the Gold Saucer visited by Cloud and co., and even shares some similar minigames like chocobo racing. There are references to characters Biggs, Wedge and Jessie too, and the Ultima Weapon from A Realm Reborn bears a striking resemblance to 7’s Ultimate Weapon.
Outside of a long list of smaller references, there’s not a whole lot of core Final Fantasy 7 content to dive into. Doing stuff related to the remakes would definitely be the next big step, but with four years between the first two parts of the trilogy, it could be a long wait until we see anything of the sorts.
If you’re wanting some more stories from Yoshida and information on Dawntrail, these answers come from a larger interview that’ll be featured in an upcoming issue of PC Gamer magazine. It’ll be on sale on March 28 in the UK and April 16 in the US, and you can grab an issue over at Magazines Direct.