Due to the recent resurgence in interest in Final Fantasy 14, a few more folks have been reading through Yoshida Uncensored. It’s a fan-translated book that collects all of Naoki Yoshida’s Famitsu column (he’s the producer of FF14 and FF16) into one volume. That means a few more tidbits, with the added context of FF16’s development, are being highlighted. This includes today’s revelation that before FF16, Yoshida and director Hiroshi Takai were working on a “hardcore action game similar to Bloodborne.”
As highlighted by ResetEra, the game was targeting Western audiences and had the same gothic style and hardcore action feel. On top of what you might expect, there was also a 4v1 multiplayer component. Given this was the early ‘10s, that’s rather ahead of its time. Yoshida says he believes it would have been a “disaster” if development had continued and they hadn’t instead been moved on to working on FF14’s resurgence.
Obviously, this isn’t the first time this info has come to light. RPGSite, in a piece introducing people to Hiroshi Takai, makes mention of it. The author, professional translator Jérémie Kermarrec, highlights how diverging thoughts on how to handle the workload of early production were already occurring. Naturally, it all rather fell apart when Yoshida and Takai, along with many others, were drafted to FF14 to help build what it has become today.
