At PAX West 2019, we were able to sit down with Natsuko Ishikawa, main scenario writer, and Takeo Suzuki, art team lead, of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. We talked about the process of creating new encounters within the world of Final Fantasy, the launch of their new expansion Shadowbringers and why Lalafells have to sit in big chairs. Please check it out!
Interviewers: Ken Dubois, Dawn Lam
Photographer: Salvador Mateos
T-ONO: For people who are not familiar with your work, can you describe what it is you do, and how you got involved with Final Fantasy XIV?
Takeo Suzuki: We have three art staff members in the supervisory role, and among those three, I handle the supervision of character design, cut scene design, as well as background design. In terms of how I got involved with the XIV team, I have had a long history with Square Enix, in general, even before the merger. I joined the company when it was still Square and worked on titles including Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII. In terms of Final Fantasy XIV, I have been a member of the team since the pre-production of the original 1.0 Final Fantasy XIV, so it was about 13 years ago when I joined the project.
Natsuko Ishikawa: For myself, with Shadowbringers, I am working on the main scenario, the storylines in general, and while I am a scenario writing, I’m also one of the game designers. So I work with the different teams, like the design team, to make requests for different assets as well as with the sound team to request different background music and determine when and where those elements would be utilized. I worked with another game developer as a game scenario writer previous to joining Square Enix and joined the XIV team when A Realm Reborn was about to be kicked off. In terms of involvement with Final Fantasy XIV, ARR and beyond is where I have been involved.
T-ONO: Can you give us some insight to the planning process for Shadowbringers?
NI: In terms to the details of how we did the planning for Shadowbringers, we have a panel that we what to present on Sunday. But to give you a rough idea, whenever we plan for an expansion, we think about where the story will take place. With Shadowbringers, we introduced a new system, the trust system, where you take different NPCs with you in some of the main storyline dungeons. We would receive instructions and ideas from our producer and director, Yoshida, and then from there, the main scenario team would work on creating the narrative.
T-ONO: What has been the most fun part about working on the main scenario, like any memorable moments or examples?
NI: Fun elements, you say…with Shadowbringers, there was a lot of story to tell and to write, so I’m afraid we don’t have a specific episode, per say. But with Final Fantasy XIV, because we have such a fast pace of updating content, we typically work as a team.
There are several writers working on different content at the same time, but with Shadowbringers, I had the opportunity to write a good majority of it myself. That is definitely something that is very memorable for me.
T-ONO: In regards to other games, is there anything that you have been particularly inspired by or something you have learned from?
NI: Of course, we play a lot of different games, and there are some of our favorites that are new and old. With Shadowbringers, I particularly wanted this to have that classic JRPG feel that I fell in love with.There isn’t a particular title, but I tried to bring in elements that would remind us of JRPGs of the 90s and 2000s.
T-ONO: In regards to the planning process, I know you worked on the Crystal Tower in 2.0. Was Shadowbringers planned that far back? Almost 4-5 years ago?
NI: When we were working on ARR, we never knew if we were going to have an expansion, and even if we knew, we didn’t know how many. With G’raha Tia being part of the Crystal Tower, we did want to tell his part of the story of what happened to him afterwards. We just didn’t know when we were going to tell that story.
Over the course of the last few years, there was a talk about the new expansion, and how we were going to have some sort of connection with it. I felt that it was a great time to bring up that story.
T-ONO: Can you tell us some of the challenges of writing a story that is based on 1.0, which is a completely different game now?
NI: To be honest, we definitely wondered about some of the original lore from 1.0. We thought about why some of these elements were incorporated into the lore, and there were some challenges in trying to interpret them for ourselves. But with that said, if the development team were having trouble figuring out some of these elements, we figured that the players may have been confused with some of these lore settings as well.
With that as our foundation, we tried to go in there, interpret it the best we could and find ways to make it make sense, make it connect. Make sure it meshes, so we can deliver the story we wanted to tell while still paying respect to the original material. We sort of used that as our foundation and as our ideas and inspirations for the story we are telling.
T-ONO: In terms of the players, can you tell us how the community’s feedback has shaped the game and has there been any sort of challenges that you have had to overcome?
NI: When we are creating the story, we do, of course, receive feedback, but we don’t typically change what we write in the story based on the feedback we receive. This is only because by the time we get player responses, we are already working on material that is already further in.
We’ve never really seen a case where receiving feedback about a character has made us consider having them appear more or less frequently in the game. We wouldn’t make a character go away because they weren’t popular. It doesn’t really affect us too much.
T-ONO: How has working on content such as the The Binding Coils of Bahamut or a Job Quest compared to something much longer, such as a whole expansion? Which type of content do you enjoy writing for more?
NI: I really loved writing the dialogue of the different NPCs within Doma in Stormblood, and as the player reconstructed the city of Doma, the NPCs started to react differently and their speech bubbles have different content in them. It gets updated as to what they say in the towns, and that was a lot of fun to write.
I really love doing some of the smaller work like writing the speech bubbles and the different dialogue of the NPCs. At the same time, I also love working with a large group of people, for example, working on something large like a new expansion because I get to come into contact with different team members. I get their input and feedback and have conversations with different cross functional teams. Being a story writer, I don’t write novels, but games; only because I get that opportunity to get input from others and am able to work with a large group of people.
T-ONO: We noticed in one of the story dungeons, Amaurot, the character Emet-Selch will tell the story throughout. Were you involved in writing that story and could you tell us a bit more about it, the dungeon, and your inspiration?
NI: What makes a team great is that with the Amaurot area, yes, the narration of Emet-Selch was written by myself, and when you walk through the dungeon, there are different names of the areas that come up.
These and when they are talking about the history of the ancient city, Oda-san [Banri Oda, main scenario writer], actually worked on those parts, so it was kind of like a conversation between the two scenario writers. It was a collaborative effort in that area.
In terms of delving more into this content, I’m sure people are very curious because of Emet-Selch, as well as we get to find out more about the Ascians and the Ancients as well. If we go too far into detail here, we wouldn’t have much to look forward to in the patch updates! So, that’s all we can say at this point.
T-ONO: Can you tell us a little bit about the process of creating the visuals for a dungeon or a raid?
TS: First and foremost, the idea or request will come from the planning side to the art team. Let’s take Amaurot for example.There are elements from the lore as well as the gameplay. With Amaurot, there were comments about how we wanted to recreate the world that was falling apart, and we were trying to recreate the moments where the civilization was in shambles.
Ishikawa would add different elements that she’d wanted to present in the visual representation of the dungeon. Another element would be that we wanted to see it scale-up as we go – sort of to see the progression as we go further into the dungeon. Those kinds of ideas gets delivered to the design team. As for Amaurot, it was interesting because they started talking about how you’d start from going into the street, then you’d see the town, then finally, it would open up to the stars and what not. It was very surprising for the design team to hear that kind of direction being given. Hearing the details that were provided to the 3D team, we’d like to work hard to show that from a graphical perspective, so from there, the team would work hard to show that in the game and be able to tell that visual narrative to the players. That’s the process we take.
T-ONO: As of the current patch (in Shadowbringers), is there a particular instance that was the most memorable? Something challenging or fun? Anything interesting?
TS: The final dungeon! It was a challenge to figure out how we would visually show what we wanted to do.
NI: Another dungeon would be the Dohn Mheg dungeon; where there was a lot of discussion, back and forth, about how we would do it, how not to do it.
TS: Because amongst the development team members, we called it the garden of illusions. You’ve got these pixies creating fantasy worlds, so to speak. It was a challenge to figure out how we wanted to depict that sort of magical garden type of environment and how we represent these illusions the enemies are projecting onto the world. It was quite challenging, but it was also something really worthwhile.
T-ONO: On a side note, it kind of reminds me of The Antitower in Heavensward. Maybe it’s the frogs? I don’t know.
NI & TS: *laughs*
NI: Oh yes, that was another challenging one too.
TS: Actually, you bring up a good point! The Antitower was also a challenge in itself. Do we create it rightside up first or flip it upside down?
T-ONO: Is there anything that you’d wish players would notice more when playing, like small details that your team worked hard on incorporating?
TS: With any open field or dungeon or raid content, we want to make sure we are paying attention to what the civilization is around that area or what kind of influences there would be in that area. Whenever we look at the designs of different zones, you’d notice that the designs of the buildings may differ from zone to zone or the textures might be varied.
We’ll actually be talking about The Tempest at the panel session on Sunday, but the concept was that we had the Ancients being there, and they resided in that area. We wanted to best express that visually as well. That was something we were very particular about. It’d be great if players do see the difference in the area and see what influences each zone and reflect how things are designed in that area.
Another element was that there is an area where only dwarves, or Lalafells, could fit in. So the design team racked their brains around what kind of house would it be? How would we adjust the size of the different furnishing, so that it’s representative of those people. We were very picky about that design.
T-ONO: As we are both Lalafell players, we’ve always wondered why we were never able to buy furniture in our size in our own homes.
NI & TS: *laughs*
TS: We understand that. It’s just that particular house that we had to figure out for Lalafell size. If we have to bring Lalafell size furnishing to typical housing, we might have a Hyur sit down, and that cause clipping, like legs going into the ground.
T-ONO: So with regards to the compacting of ARR, how will that affect the expansion? Would it just be ARR or would it include all of the expansion?
NI: With making the story more compact, it will primarily affect ARR story, but we do not have any intention of rewriting the story at all. What we’re trying to do is shave off some of the excess. If there are areas that a player is not required to go, we would shave it off, so it’s more streamlined. Please be assured that there won’t be a case where a character is supposed to make an appearance be written out of the story. It will still make sense.
It also applies to patches 2.1 to 2.5 with the end of A Realm Reborn. People are eager to get into Ishgard as quickly as possible, and there are several quests that require players to go elsewhere before entering the narrative of Heavensward. We’re revisiting some of those quest lines to make it more streamlined.
T-ONO: Does everyone write their own dialogue for The Rising Event?
NI: We try to gather input from the various staff members, but we have a lot of people on our development team. If we had everyone write their own letters, it would be a heck of a long letter. So, we got the scenario team members to help paraphrase to make sure we incorporated everyone’s messages into these dialogues.
T-ONO: Lastly, could we get a closing statement from both you to your fans around the world who couldn’t make it here today?
NI: There are so many players worldwide that are enjoying the story of the Shadowbringers, and there are so many new players that are joining us. We wondered to ourselves how far can we take this. But at the same time, we want to go as far as we can possibly go, so your continuing support of Final Fantasy XIV would be greatly appreciated.
TS: Ishikawa-san mentioned what I wanted to mention, but it’s wonderful to see so many people enjoying Shadowbringers, and it far exceeds our imagination. It’s wonderful, and it makes us so happy. As Ishikawa mentioned, there are so many new people joining Final Fantasy XIV, and it’s great to know that so many are enjoying the story and spreading the word.
Our circle and community is getting larger and larger. We just want to thank the players that are enjoying Shadowbringers and are bringing new people in. We have this expanded community now, we would love to continue to enjoy and create the game with the players.
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