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Masayoshi Soken has his own people in the Sound department who handle his schedule for him. Rather than a specific system or a process, it’s a sense of teamwork that we’ve built up over the years.

#Final fantasy logo how to#

I wouldn’t have a clue how to keep myself organized without them!Īny decisions regarding the overall management of the division I try to leave in the hands of the upper management as much as possible, which allows me to focus on my work as producer and director. NY: I wouldn’t call it a system per se, but the project managers and assistant producers on both projects do a great job planning out my schedule to make sure I’m not overwhelmed. PSB: It’s now been confirmed that there are some Final Fantasy XIV dev team members (including you!) working on FFXVI - do you have specific systems or processes in place to ensure teams can perform to the best of their ability across two tonally distinct games without burning themselves (or yourself) out? I imagine lots of work on XVI must have been happening around the same time as final FFXIV Endwalker preparations… A year is a short time in game development, so we’re all straining at the bit to get it over the line. Final Fantasy XVI is a very action-oriented game, so we’re also doing a lot of playtesting to fine-tune the difficulty levels, as well as putting the final touches on the cutscenes, and going through a full-scale debugging process. NY: Right now, the game is fully playable from start to finish, but we have a lot of voiceover in several languages that still need to be recorded. PSB: Following the debut of FFXVI’s new “Dominance” trailer during State of Play, we finally have a release window! Where will the development team be focusing their efforts during this final year before the game launches? And all the while, in the back of my mind I was thinking “Please don’t let this impact on Final Fantasy XIV!” Later, we brought a few more members on board to take charge of the battle system and the graphics, and through a process of building on what worked and scrapping what didn’t, we gradually moved towards full-scale development.

We brought two other members into the group, and between the four of us, we sketched out the core concepts of the game and its world, as well as the key themes that we wanted to put across, and started work on writing the main storyline. I’d worked with Hiroshi Takai for many years, and he’s one of my most trusted colleagues, as well as a veteran developer, so I asked him if he would take on the role-and thankfully, he agreed. You always have to be up for the challenge. Not only do you have the expectations of the fans and the media to live up to, but you’re constantly under pressure from the development team, too. NY: Being the director of a Final Fantasy game is a tougher job than most people imagine.

PSB: How was the composition of the rest of FFXVI’s development team decided?

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To ensure that the development of XVI didn’t affect that of XIV, we picked out a very small group of core team members to start with, and over the course of several years, slowly and carefully transitioned them across to start work on the new game, until we had the full team assembled. I was worried that if I took on the directorship of XVI, too, fans of both games would have good reason to believe I wasn’t giving either project my full attention. But, as you probably know, I’m already the producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV. NY: I said “Thanks, but I have my hands full with Final Fantasy XIV, so let me think about it.” I was truly honored that the company would choose my section, Creative Business Unit 3, to be responsible for making the next entry in the FF series.

PSB: Thinking back to the beginning of the FFXVI project, do you remember how the conversation went when you were asked to produce this new mainline entry? What was your initial reaction?