The whole story was not planned from the beginning.
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
At the onset of A Realm Reborn, we worked hard just to sprinkle mysteries throughout the story. Of course, we had to avoid including any threads that might severely restrict future story developments and interspersed these mysteries while keeping it somewhat open-ended so that we could be agile and connect them however and whenever we saw fit. I think our players contributed to the success of this format because the community has always voiced their thoughts and observations of the story and read deeply into the scenario, which kept us trying our hardest to weave all of the strands together.
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The Crystal Tower series was not planned to set up Shadowbringers.
Originally Posted by
Ishikawa
When we first introduced the Crystal Tower series and the conclusion it had, the team did have this feeling of “Oh we would love to have him come back in some way, some time” and we still hadn’t pinpointed when we wanted to introduce him back. Those two ideas existed and when Yoshida brought up the idea of Shadowbringers, when we were trying to decide on the story and the central gimmick of where we want to take the narrative, I felt it would click to have him come back and that it was the appropriate time.
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Originally Posted by
Yoshida
When we were creating the Crystal Tower content as the alliance raid way back when, we never imagined we were going to use this character in such a storyline, and we didn't have it planned at that time.
There were considerations and discussions that if there was a case where we had to reset FFXIV in our expanding of the game and whatnot, whether we would reuse the character or not. But nothing was really set in stone.
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On what was planned for the First:
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
First and foremost, when we were thinking about Patch 3.4, around three years ago, when we were trying to decide what the story was going to be like, we did have the thought that we wanted to depict the realm being shattered. Because the realm is shattered into fourteen different worlds, including The Source, we wanted to explain that through our narrative at one point. Not necessarily for the next expansion, but we wanted to make sure we allocated some time to depict that storyline.
When we actually finalized that we’re taking our adventurers to The First for Shadowbringers was around August of 2017.
The reason why that specific timing is because that’s when I had to sit down and think about what the game design is going to be for Shadowbringers 5.0 and I had to come up with a script, or text-based storyboard, for the opening trailer.
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The writing team began writing the outline for Shadowbringers one month after Stormblood 4.0's release.
Originally Posted by
Ishikawa
The outline of what we wanted to do for Shadowbringers was already being discussed a little over a month after Stormblood was released so I’m afraid not much of the feedback would have made a large impact on the framework of the narrative.
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Originally Posted by
Gamerescape
The development process for Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers started in Summer of 2017 shortly after the release of Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida approached the team with a few directives: “Let’s go to the First!”, and “It would be cool to add trusts and bring the Scions into the dungeons.”
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On writing the outlines for an expansion's base story:
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
First of all, when we are thinking about an upcoming expansion, thinking about the storyline and what the purpose is going to be and what kind of situation we’re going to have, it’s all decided at this Scenario Boot Camp, as we call it. It’s a four-day, concentrated meeting session.
Of course, we say “Boot Camp”, but it would be nice if it were at some sort of nice, air-conditioned hotel or at a resort somewhere, but no. We borrow a temporary meeting room that’s off-site from our office, and we just can ourselves in there, and just discuss and hash out the scenario for four days, and a majority of what we’re going to do in the storyline and the plot is decided at that meeting.
From that discussion, we don’t suddenly just make the lore, but we want to focus on what kind of story experience we want our players to have. So we start to think about where is this going to take place? What is the drama that we want to create with the cast of characters? Or what kind of encounters we will have to face? And sort of make those as our plot, and write those out. And then we start to build the lore around it, so that we can build and excite these different plot points.
For example, we have the Rak’Tika Greatwood. We were thinking about this massive forest, and there’s some kind of old history associated with it, we would like for the players to be enthralled in that history, and that’s about as far as we talk about at the Scenario Boot Camp.
From that, we go to developing our plot. So we’ll think about, “OK, we want Y’shtola to be prominent in that area,” and we’re going to unravel the story behind those old ruins that they find in the Greatwood, and they decide the theme from there. And then we take it to the Lore Team to build the lore around it. What are these ruins that we find within the Greatwood? Since when have they existed? What kind of deity did they worship there? So we don’t necessarily build the lore first and then the game, but we take the game experience and then build the lore to support it. That’s the way we approach it.
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We know from other interviews that after the outline is written, the storyline remains in flux right up until the last minute. G'raha Tia's fate was undecided until right up to 5.3's release.
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
The scenario team and I discussed multiple times at length deliberating the fate of the Crystal Exarch," Yoshida explains. "We came up with several different potential outcomes, and we were in discussions on a few shortlisted ideas up until the very last minute.
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Emet-Selch did not exist in the first draft. The antagonists were the Sin-Eaters. Evidently Emet-Selch did not exist prior to Shadowbringers 5.0's story being created, in Summer 2017 after Stormblood 4.0 launched.
Originally Posted by
Gamerescape
Her first draft of the full Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers main scenario had Ascians, Ardbert, the Crystal Exarch’s narrative and the Scions plot lines. An interesting omission from that draft was Vauthry’s sections, as the Sin Eaters were originally controlled by Eden. The idea of restoring night to the areas of the world one by one by defeating the Lightwardens was not featured at all. In fact, there was only Eden as the final boss.
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On the Ascians and what was planned for them:
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
When we developed A Realm Reborn, we chose only the Ascians' fundamental setting," Yoshida states. "When it came to things like the intent and mission of each Ascian, the scenario and lore teams sculpted those aspects through further discussion and deliberation as time went on.
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They didn't come up with the Emet = Solus and the Ascian-Garlemald connection until they began writing Shadowbringers. Emet-Selch did not exist until they began writing Shadowbringers.
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
In 5.0 we wanted to explore the Ascians and see what kind of people they are, and get a deeper understanding. Emet-Selch played a big part in this story to tell us what happened and what they want, which is why we created the character.
Eventually, because we added the crystal tower, our lore team came up with the concept of the Garlean Empire, which now links to the Shadowbringers expansion. It almost feels like it was planned, but it was more of a coïncidence that all the teams came up with ideas.
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Originally Posted by
Yoshida
Before Stormblood we thought that there should have been a link between the Ascians and Garlemald, and we realized that everything made more sense if Garlemald was actually a creation of the Ascian.
We had this ancient character, emperor Solus, and we thought that using him worked in our favor. That’s the background of the inception of the Ascian as they are now.
Ishikawa-san wished to humanize the Ascians and Emet-Selch, and to explore them as characters instead of leaving their vision unclear.
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The Elidibus arc and Endwalker 6.0 was written after Shadowbringers 5.0 launched, in late October.
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
First, to your question about Azem—as we were finalizing the main story for 5.0, we solidified the concept related to not just Azem, but also the full fourteen seats of the Convocation to a certain degree.
However, in the case of Elidibus, we hadn’t determined the flow of the story through the end of 5.3 until after the release of 5.0. While we had already decided that the battle with Elidibus would be at the end of Patch 5.3, the finer details were only finalized during the production of Patch 5.1.
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Originally Posted by
Yoshida
The outcome of the story for the 5.x series and beyond have almost been decided already.
Most of the decisions are already made during the scenario camps we have, so it didn't have much of an influence on the future story. However, we usually only have one scenario camp between each expansion, but we decided to have 2 for the next one so we can perfectly conclude the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga. We already had the first camp, so the story for the 5.x series and a little beyond have already been almost 100% decided.
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Originally Posted by
Yoshida
For “Endwalker,” the story was written by October 2019.
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Regarding the direction of FFXIV after 6.0:
Originally Posted by
Yoshida
I think when it comes to how we deliver that content it will depend on the tension developed after finishing Endwalker.
In other words, when I do my Producer and Director check on the content, and play the game from the perspective of a player, the image of “I definitely think other players would think that way, so this is how we should deliver our content from 6.1 onwards” will become obvious I reckon.
Currently I haven’t gone through such experience yet so once our development advances further I’ll be able to come out with further ideas about it.
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