Famitsu Interview With Yoshida, Ishikawa and Oda Discusses Endwalker's Story and More
The latest issue of Famitsu includes an interview with Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida, Lead Writer Natsuko Ishikawa and Lead Story Designer Banri Oda. The trio spoke about writing Endwalker, the inception of new characters, and even going all the way back to talking about the lore of 1.0 and what the Ascians really were up to during A Realm Reborn and Heavensward.
Both Yoshida and Ishikawa admit that most of the lore they had for the Ascians was basically them “doing bad stuff in the background.” As Banri Oda points out they did make use of some of the lore they implemented along the road. For example the idea that the Sharlayans would eventually make their way to the moon.
That the Warriors of Light themselves would travel to the stars was a decision made while the trio came up with the story for Endwalker in late 2019. The dragons and Omega were already established as originating from other stars, so taking inspiration from that and Oda’s fondness for sci-fi seemed like a fitting combination for Ishikawa, saying “[…]with Oda-san, I had the feeling ‘we can safely make it to the edge of the universe!”
You can find the interview translated in full over on the FFXIV subreddit here.