Despite the massively multiplayer angle, MMOs can be quite lonely games—and if you play them for very long, you’ll learn there are plenty of people who play them specifically to solo as much as they can. That can mean casually clearing the story or going sicko mode by killing a raid boss intended for a fully kitted-out group. But what would, say, Final Fantasy 14 look like as a true solo game? Director Naoki Yoshida, otherwise known as Yoshi-P, wants to hear some ideas.
He said as much during this weekend’s Fan Festival (via GameSpot) after he was asked if he’d thought about making a single player version or spinoff of FF14 for players who don’t care to play a Final Fantasy game wrapped up in all the MMO trappings that define 14.
“There are still a lot of people out there who look at an online Final Fantasy and they say, ‘Well, an online Final Fantasy isn’t a real Final Fantasy,'” he said via translation. “While I do love to consider making a standalone Final Fantasy 14, unfortunately the only team that could make a standalone Final Fantasy 14—the best standalone Final Fantasy 14—is the current Final Fantasy 14 team. If we ever retire from Final Fantasy XIV Online, maybe we can do it as our work after retirement.”
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“If there were people who are interested in creating a sort of standalone Final Fantasy—if you have friends or if you know companies that would like to take on that challenge—we would love to hear from them. … I mean, if someone’s passionate enough to want to helm that sort of project, we would love to hear from you.”
He also noted that fans of the MMO would probably be annoyed if he got distracted working on a spinoff instead of cooking up more expansions, which is probably true. That said, if you are a fan and have immense resources, experience, and a great idea for a 14-themed solo RPG more in line with other Final Fantasy games, I’m sure Square Enix would be happy to hear you out. Personally, I think they should be turning the solo entries into MMOs rather than the other way around—see how they like it!
