Producer of Final Fantasy XIV Finds NFTs “Interesting” but Doesn’t Plan to Include Them in the Game

‘Final Fantasy XIV‘ (FFXIV) has been the surprise package dark horse of the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy series. Despite the rest of its releases being single player JRPGs, Square Enix decided to experiment in the MMO genre, initially releasing Final Fantasy XI in 2002, though it never received widespread attention.

The beloved developers were not deterred however, going on to release FFXIV in 2010; though its initial release was considered a failure, and the servers shut down, the MMORPG was polished and re-released in 2013 as ‘FFXIV: A Realm Reborn,’ and has been met with unparalleled success, even having to temporarily close sales of the game in December 2021 due to an excessively large player population in the wake of the release of its 4th expansion ‘Endwalker.‘ Indeed, even though the next single-player iteration of the series, ‘Final Fantasy XV’ released back in 2016, FFXIV is still going strong.

With Final Fantasy XIV turning 12 years old in 2022, the producers announced a graphical update on a recent Twitch stream. The game will receive high-resolution texture changes for its characters (hair, skin, gear, etc.), environments and dungeons.

Naturally, fans of the series asked about the possibility of NFT technology being implemented into the game. Previously, Square Enix’s president, Yosuke Matsuda, has remarked that he favoured the technology and was looking forward to exploring its possibilities, which led to many players being concerned about how these plans might affect their favorite MMO.

During the stream, the producer of Final Fantasy XIV, Naoki Yoshida, answered this question:

“Based on how Final Fantasy XIV is designed, we don’t intend on incorporating any sort of NFT element in the game at this point. If anybody is worried or concerned about it, I can clearly state at this time that we do not have any intentions to incorporate that into the game.”

You can watch the record of the livestream here: