FF14 Evercold's 'Evolved Mode' jobs aren't a replacement, because Yoshi-P remembers what happened to Star Wars Galaxies

Upcoming expansion FF14 Evercold is about to introduce a completely new way to play every job in the game, and for a lot of them the difference is significant. ‘Evolved Mode’ transforms each of the game’s 21 classes into a fresh form, designed to feel streamlined, more flexible, and with more individual personality. However, you don’t have to use it. If you like the way things are right now, ‘Reborn Mode’ will keep the classic style that you know and love, and it’ll continue to be supported, remaining equally viable for completing everything the MMORPG throws your way. During a Fanfest Q&A session, I asked game director Naoki Yoshida when and why he decided to commit to this two-part future.

Yoshida explains (via translator Aimi Tokutake) that he was first considering a change to the battle system about a year and a half ago, and spoke to assistant director Tsuyoshi Yokozawa and battle director Kei Sato about it. Both of them had one person in mind for the job: battle system planner Hikaru Tamaki, who joined the team just four days after the launch of Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. He has a long history in job design, high-end duties, and PvP (including being central to the creation of Crystalline Conflict), and is known as ‘Mr Prime’ for his work on The Ridorana Lighthouse’s notorious ‘math boss,’ Construct Seven.

Yoshida told Tamaki, “Hey, let’s go get some grilled meats,” and from that point (about one year and four months ago) the plans were in motion. You can watch Yoshida and Tamaki demo the Evolved Mode for Paladin, Dragoon, White Mage, and Bard in the Fanfest development panel below, starting from the 5:44:10 mark in the livestream. While some will feel relatively close to their Reborn counterparts, others are dramatically different, such as the Dragoon. However, Yoshida established right from the start that he didn’t want to lose the old system that so many players know and love.

Yoshida calls on the older MMO players in the room: “Do you know Star Wars Galaxies? If you know about the game, I’m sure you know what happened to it, when it did its thing,” he says conservatively. In 2005, Star Wars Galaxies went through two notable overhauls – first, a ‘Combat Upgrade,’ and then a more substantial ‘New Game Enhancement,’ both of which made significant changes to how it was played. While they probably shouldn’t be considered solely responsible for the game’s eventual downfall, they certainly didn’t help to save it, proving widely unpopular among a significant amount of the existing player base.

“I actually really liked Star Wars Galaxies and its game design,” Yoshida recalls. “But then they took an existing system, and they just changed it to something entirely new, and players did not take that very well.” He acknowledges that the developer’s intent was to better the gameplay experience for the players, but comments that, ultimately, “I know people refer to it as a very tragic incident.”

With FF14 now 13 years old (15 if you count 1.0), there’s more than a decade of familiarity with systems the team have carefully established and grown over the entire lifespan of the game. “I knew that I didn’t want to just suddenly remove what we’ve been used to, and that was my decision from the start.” He does, however, point to Dawntrail’s Viper and Pictomancer as the beginning of this shift: “I feel like we’re already kind of stepping into that Evolved Mode. The more recent job design feels a lot more streamlined, and I feel like it’s a good design. I think we can start applying that to the existing jobs that we’ve been accustomed to and had for these many years.”

As for the difficulties faced so far, he says that the biggest concern has been the time available. “We really want to be thoughtful and thorough in building this system, but doing so requires time, of course.” He comments that Tamaki has also had to continue all of his other jobs, including high-end encounter adjustments, balance testing, overseeing fight design, and ongoing work on the PvP side of the game.

During the rest of the Q&A session, Yoshida also reveals that he originally had a different name in mind for Evercold: “Absolute Zero.” He was even beginning to imagine how the logo might look. It didn’t make the final cut, but it isn’t the first expansion to go through such iterations. He notes how Stormblood was originally ‘Rebellion,’ Shadowbringers was once ‘Darkbringer,’ and Endwalker could have been called ‘World’s End.’ However, the name and concept were locked in from about two months after the launch of Dawtrail.

He ponders that along with the more literal definition of things physically freezing over, “we can also think about how a person’s heart can grow cold and icy.” He adds, “With this expansion, your Warriors of Light will be encountering many instances of various different types of ice that they will either melt or even have to destroy to move forward and explore, and become a sort of wanderer.” I’m interpreting that last phrase as a nod to Azem’s title of the Traveler.

Asked about the Norse influences seen in our early glimpses of Evercold, Yoshida admits, “I was about to say, ‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on it,’ but it was a really sharp observation.” He says the team tried to obscure the Norse inspirations in the initial reveal: “That’s one of the reasons why we did not list any names or proper nouns in the keynote presentation, and I think you will start to realize that as we reveal more information.”

Speaking to the possibility of a single-player FF14 game, he says that if there are any individuals or companies that fancy the challenge, “we would love to hear from them.” He continues, “I’m half joking, half serious.” As for whether we could see Creative Studio 3 make a spin-off game, such as a tale following one of the side characters, he comments, “I’m sure FF14 players would look at that and say, ‘Yoshi-P, instead of focusing on some spin-off project, can you just work more on the actual game?'” I’ll put my dreams of a Metal Gear Rising style Estinien-’em-up on the back burner for now.

Yoshida can’t offer any more details on the Evangelion alliance raid revealed during his Fanfest keynote for the time being, but does close the session by talking about where he sees the next ten years of FF14.  “I do have a general idea of what direction I want to take the overall saga, so it’s more about pinpointing what the next theme will be.” Looking further out, he remarks, “I can’t really imagine FF14 coming to an end. It is my job, well, my goal to keep that going. Even if I die or if I retire, FF14 will continue on even without me – the goal is for me to create the state so that it can continue to go on.”