Creative Studio 3 of FF14 and FF16 continues to grow amidst Square Enix restructuring, and Yoshi-P cites Elden Ring as an inspiration to the development of Dawntrail. Read on to learn more about what’s to come!
Square Enix’ Creative Studio 3 Going Strong
FF14 And FF16 Team Working On Two New Games
In the midst of a Square Enix restructuring and mass layoffs, Creative Studio 3 is confirmed to not be one of the studios impacted by the news and is even working on two unannounced titles. Headed by Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida, Creative Studio 3 is an internal development studio within Square Enix and consistently develops and maintains titles such as Final Fantasy 11, Final Fantasy 14, and Final Fantasy 16.
Yoshi-P said in an interview with Dutch game website Gamer.nl that the current team is staying strong without having to fire anyone—and they’re even hiring new employees. The biggest change in the staff group is just the rebranding of their name from Creative Business Unit 3 to Creative Studio 3.
"The company has high expectations for our division. It's one of the pillars of Square Enix. There is no chance they'll make cuts or invest less in us," Yoshida said proudly. "We'll keep working just as hard on (Final Fantasy 14), so players don't have to worry," he added, in light of the upcoming FF14 Dawntrail expansion releasing at the start of July.
Yoshi-P also dropped rather exciting news as well—"We're also working on some unannounced games. Seeing how our team is functioning, we can't work on many games at the same time, but we keep trying. There will be some announcements soon regarding two new games we're working on." It’s anybody’s guess as to what games are cooking up in Creative Studio 3’s development lab.
Dawntrail Is Inspired By Elden Ring
The end of June and the start of July are starting off with a bang. FF14’s latest expansion pack, Dawntrail, will go public on July 2, a week after the release of Elden Ring’s DLC Shadow of the Erdtree.
Yoshi-P revealed at PAX East this year that the intended release date was actually a week earlier, but ultimately decided not to coincide with the long-awaited DLC for FromSoftware’s highly-rated action RPG. "I’ll give you one week to enjoy the Elden Ring DLC, and then just go into your summer vacation with Dawntrail," he said with a chuckle, eliciting laughter and cheers from the audience.
"Just to make it clear, it’s not because I want to play the Elden Ring DLC and then play Dawntrail. But I am looking forward to it," he said. A little hard to believe, because it seems that almost all of the FF14 development team are fans of the game, and that we could see some inspiration from the Elden Ring in Dawntrail.
"I think in the development team for Final Fantasy 14, possibly 98% [of them] are playing Elden Ring," he said in an interview with PC Gamer. "When it comes to the people involved in the battle content on our team, they would be playing and they would be saying, 'Oh yeah, if we could make something this difficult, we should definitely do it."
But don’t worry, FF14 players—he quickly clarified that no Elden Ring-difficult type bosses will make their way into the MMO any time soon, and that there’s nothing to worry about. Instead, you’ll see more of the Elden Ring influence in its vibrant environment. "But when it comes to things like the scenery in the game or the atmosphere and being able to convey that sense without a lot of text to convey those nuances in the story, Elden Ring does that really well. And I think there must be people in the team who are really inspired by that as well."
Check out Game8’s article on everything we know about the upcoming Dawntrail expansion!
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