A walk through the end with Naoki Yoshida

The problem with a lot of long-lived games is that the villains get so powerful that they become absurd. Naoki Yoshida is the game director of Final Fantasy XIV. In an interview with The Verge, the celebrated director of Final Fantasy XIV shared insight into Endwalker's phenomenal story and why he isn't worried about creating an even bigger Big Bad.

The military general of a fascist nation is the final boss in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. In the Heavensward expansion, players will fight ancient alien dragons who are unable to put aside their hate and work toward a peaceful coexistence after years of conflict with the mortal races of the world. In Shadowbringers, the warriors of light fought a dictator with the power of a dragon god, and in Stormblood, the warriors of light fought a dictator with the power of a dragon god. In the most recent expansion Endwalker, players face and defeat the embodiment of hopelessness.

It would be difficult for Yoshida's team to craft a villain that was more threatening than death. When I asked if he was worried that his team would be painted in a corner, he simply said no.

The world is always full of mysteries. They could be horrors born from personal ideology, tragedies caused by a concentration of power, or things that arise as a result of beliefs based on religion or education. We are still a long way off from where we want to be as we try to understand and overcome various barriers.

Endwalker's story puts a far-too-neat-to-be-coincidental bow on plotlines that began way back in 2012 with A Realm Reborn. I asked if the parallels between ARR and Endwalker were a happy accident or something planned over the last 10 years.

"If you were to ask if I ad-libbed it, that would be the case," he said with a laugh.

Endwalker's story implies that Yoshida and his team are not the master long-term planners, but some elements of the story were crafted to fit in with things that happened a decade ago. In my review of Endwalker, I said the game was a songfic and the theme song was A Realm Reborn.

He said that the story was created to fit the song's lyrics.

Endwalker introduced new features that put an interesting spin on FFXIV's traditional game play. You have to complete dungeons with a party of other players. The trust system was introduced in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The trust system can reduce a player's wait in a dungeon queue and is a great way for them to learn a boss's mechanics without fear of slowing other, more advanced players down at the cost of dungeons taking a bit longer than usual. I wanted to know how Yoshida was going to change the format in the future.

He is still in the honeymoon phase of planning the next expansion and would like to stay.

The process of shaping thoughts into reality is very painful, and things are the most fun when I am imagining what I can make.

The characters your warrior of light befriends and be-enemies are another aspect of FFXIV. The majority of the time in Shadowbringers, you are fighting against a man named Emet-Selch, who wants to destroy your world because he believes it will bring back his own ruined world. You call upon Emet-Selch to help you defeat Endwalker's final boss.

Endwalker deals with the themes of closure and endings. Your NPC companions talk about what they will do after everything is over, suggesting that your time together as this motley crew of world-savers is, after so long, at its end. The warrior of light will no longer have a reason for existence once this trial is over. Emet-Selch tells you that there are still mysteries in the world for you to discover. It is a moving moment because it is Emet-Selch, a man who had at one time been your enemy and not one of your many friends who restores to you a reason to keep going. I wanted to know why the story was written this way and how it might affect the relationship between the warrior of light and Emet-Selch.

There would be concerns about Endwalker's end.

I had Emet-Selch take on that because there may be people out there who are uncertain about future adventures. There are so many views you have yet to see. I've seen them, now you can see them as well.

The latest patch explores the mysteries Emet-Selch shared with the warrior of light. The Aglaia raid, released with patch 6.1, will allow players to investigate the mysteries of the 12 deities that the Eorzeans worship. I asked if all of Emet-Selch's Endwalker revelations were a hint at what's to come in future expansions.

The story of FFXIV has always been woven together with a thorough schedule and regular patches. I don't think it's possible to go to all the places Emet-Selch mentioned in two years, but it would be nice if we could visit those places someday.

He said that it was also a message from them.