The Pixel Remaster series brought Final Fantasy classics to Steam with a modern rework and an updated look, but the Final Fantasy 14 team wants to add another way for players to go back to the series' roots. If you’ve ever wanted to play a Final Fantasy inside of your Final Fantasy, Yoshida’s got your back—maybe.
During a press conference at the 2023 Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival, director and producer Naoki Yoshida was asked if players could ever expect to see older Final Fantasy games available in the MMO. It's an idea similar to games like Animal Crossing, where you can play old Nintendo classics in your home with special items. Not only has Yoshida thought about this, but he's talked the idea over with his team.
"We've been trying or attempting this since about a year and a half ago," Yoshida said. "With the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series coming out, we also thought that wouldn't it be cool if we can play that in Gold Saucer or have it in our estate to play with?"
Yoshida explained the team got as far as testing this idea, but putting the Pixel Remasters inside FF14 got complicated. "We realized the Pixel Remasters are running on a middleware," he went on. "Because it's running on a middleware, if you want to implement that into 14 you'd have to build another system that can play that middleware inside of the game. So it's like.. building a system of a game to play a system of a game inside… it's just this weird configuration. Our Final Fantasy 14 team is—I love them, but they're crazy—though I don't think they're that crazy."
Yoshida, seemingly only half-joking, went on to say if he could get a couple more super genius programmers they may have a path forward when it comes to adding playable Final Fantasy classics inside of your FF14 house or the Gold Saucer amusement park. He went as far as to ask for résumés, just in case there are any Warriors of Light out there that may have a suggestion.
Though if you were hoping the feature would come with no strings attached, Yoshida noted it's got to work as a business somehow. He highlighted how the question asked if even the Cash Shop could be an option for arcade cabinet-style features, and it's one he's pondered.
"We could probably consider maybe Final Fantasy 1 through 3 might be free, but we can't give them all away. So maybe 4, though we might have to think of how it would become a business."
