Naoki Yoshida>> Hello again to all you FFXIVers out there, and to all of you looking forward to FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn. Letter from the Producer #33, incoming!
Well, I’m back from ChinaJoy and the blazing hot metropolis that is Shanghai, and now my sights are leveled on Cologne and gamescom 2012. At the same time, we’re busy preparing a little something special for the upcoming 25th anniversary of FINAL FANTASY, and getting ready for the FFXIV alpha test. The heat is on—figuratively and literally.
Like I wrote last time, there’s been a lot going on. The new teaser site’s gone live, the new game title’s been announced, the new logo’s been revealed, and a new trailer’s been released. We’ve thrown a bunch of stuff out into the public, and now we’re finally shifting into full-blown A Realm Reborn mode.
There’s tons of topics I’d like to get into with you—what’s on the teaser site, what’s in the trailer, the imagery of the new logo, the meaning of some of the keywords we’ve been dropping… But in this letter, I’m just gonna talk about what’s going on in the trailer. Hope that’s cool for now.
The title of the trailer is The Fate of Eorzea, and in editing, the cuts, voiceover, and music were put together with the aim of appealing to people all around the world in a big way. That’s why it might look a little different from other FF series stuff you’ve seen up till now. We tried to make it as much like a hit Hollywood blockbuster trailer as we could.
I know you’re all jonesin’ for some in-game footage, though, and I promise it’s on the way. We’re going to be introducing some of the new content and features, doing walkthroughs on some maps, and showing the overhauled combat and Battle Regimen systems. It’s all going to be coming gradually as part of A Realm Reborn’s marketing leading up to release. I know that’s a bit longer than some of you would like to wait, but I hope you’ll bear with us and keep an eye out for it all!
FFXIV: A Realm Reborn isn’t meant for any one region or specific generation of gamers. Whether you know FF or don’t, whether you’ve ever played it or not, whatever hours you keep, whatever language you speak—it’s a game meant to be enjoyed by anyone in any part of the world.
I hate to repeat myself, but I really want to show the appeal of A Realm Reborn in a gradual and easy-to-understand way, even to people who don’t know anything about the FINAL FANTASY series.
Still, I admit there’s a bit of a persistent traditionalist in me. I did want to use the FF Crystal Theme in the BGM of the trailer, but in the end I decided that it just didn’t fit the vibe. This first trailer really needed something with more punch.
So after really having that inner voice nag at me for a while, I decided to have another trailer made up, which we did thanks to the hard work of the Visual Works crew, Masayoshi Soken and the others from our sound team, and our marketing and PR teams.
For old-school FF fans out there like me, I hope that you can feel a nice mix of the old and the new—some nostalgia and some novelty. This is the second trailer for the game. The last one was The Fate of Eorzea. Let’s go ahead and call this one A Realm Reborn. Boom. That just happened.
And what a rebirth it’s gonna be! The disaster that will usher in the Seventh Umbral Era is threatening Eorzea with darkness and danger. The themes of destruction and rebirth are more powerful than ever for FFXIV, and so what better time to drop a few keywords in the trailers to hint at what’s on the way in the wake of the coming catastrophe. I think it’s a little something special for those playing the game now, since it shows the worlds of the current version and the future version side by side in a way that hasn’t been done before.
Alright, let’s get back to the Eorzea of the current version. Patch 1.23 went live a few days back, and just like with 1.22, we are going to be releasing a 1.23a and 1.23b as well. Look for 1.23a to go live on August 13.
The Seventh Umbral catastrophe looms! Get ready for the grand finale, and dive headlong into your final adventure before the realm is reborn!
Talk to you next letter, or on the forums!
Alright gamescom, here I come!
Bis bald! :)
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