Final Fantasy XIV’s director Naoko Yoshida announced the release of the game’s next major release in the funniest way possible.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Naoko was on a PAX panel when he said this:
“We figured everybody would be interested in playing the Elden Ring DLC. I’ll give you one week.”
Is it an unwitting endorsement of the competition? But Naoko was honest about how game companies know their titles will be competing with each other in the marketplace. It’s rare for them to do so, but often they will deliberately pick the same release date, or release close to each other.
Now the industry won’t talk about this more publicly, but clearly there is logic behind this seeming madness. Certain dates are favorable for a game announcement or release than others. It seems that things like holidays, shopping behaviors, business financial reporting dates, and others are factors that developers take into account when they choose these dates.
Naoko just also acknowledges how popular From Software and their titles are. While their games are in different genres, they do compete for players’ time, and that’s why he said what he said.
So let’s talk Elden Ring. The highly anticipated Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, is getting released on June 21, 2024, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows, via Steam.
On June 28, 2024, Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion, Final Fantasy XIV’: Dawntrail, will be released on Early Access on June 28. The full release will then arrive on July 2, 2024.
Final Fantasy XIV remains playable on PlayStation 3, as well as on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, MacOs, Windows, and most recently, Xbox Series X|S. With Dawntrail comes a host of updates, some of which will come to the base game so players can enjoy them even without buying the DLC.
Those free updates include the expected updates to the game and its graphics, and also changes to Gold Saucer, as well as a new playable race; the female Hrothgar.
If you do buy Dawntrail, you’ll get two new jobs in the Viper, Pictomancer, and Beastmaster, as well as a host of new locations, campaigns, game items, PVP, and more. Naoko and everyone else at Creative Business Unit 3 know they made a lot of winning content that gamers will be playing for a long time.
So one can call this Yoshida’s show of confidence that their fans will come back to Final Fantasy XIV. Even if those players haven’t finished Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, they’ll jump back in anyway.
