Final Fantasy 14's housing system is due to get two "very big" overhauls as part of the post-Evercold run of patches, and it looks like Blizzard's own take on the popular MMO feature in World of Warcraft has given Square Enix plenty to chew over.
As part of Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fest in Berlin, producer and director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida spoke to the press to tackle some questions about Evercold. Among the most interesting was a question over whether Square Enix had any plans to modernize Final Fantasy 14's housing system.
Speaking through a translator, Yoshi-P jokes that the question may have been refined prior to being presented to him, before adding: "I get the feeling what you really want to ask is, well, WoW has come up with this amazing housing system. How about [Final Fantasy] 14?"
Yoshi-P starts by saying that the Final Fantasy 14 team has an "immense respect" for the World of Warcraft team. And indeed, Yoshi-P has rarely been shy in giving Blizzard its flowers.
Then, he shares that when the Final Fantasy 14 team saw that the WoW devs were working on their own housing system, and that they "looked to [Final Fantasy] 14 and incorporated things which they wanted to surpass us, I think that in itself is very much a sense of great honor for us to hear."
Seemingly happy to return the favor, Yoshi-P says he went "hands-on" with the WoW housing system, and came away impressed and motivated.
"I really do appreciate it. It's amazing," he says. "And we always like taking on new challenges. So this time around, when I tried WoW's housing, I thought it really is amazing, and it's been a good source of research."
The good news is that you'll see the results of that research soon. Yoshi-P says the Final Fantasy 14 team is "planning two very big overhauls for housing" during the patch 8.0 series. If you're averse to numbers, that means it'll arrive at some point between Final Fantasy 14's Evercold expansion launching and whatever the next expansion ends up being.
So what's on the way? Yoshi-P says one of the overhauls relates to the UI as it's currently "quite technical" and "not very accessible." In an ideal world, Yoshi-P would like a casual player to be able to create elaborate housing.
While Yoshi-P can't reveal much about the second overhaul, he does say it will make players happier than the UI update and that it's currently in the planning phase. As such, there's a chance it'll release before the UI update, but we'll just need to wait and see how the chips fall. Yoshi-P says the Final Fantasy 14 team will announce further details when they have more visibility.
The news is the latest sliver we've got about Final Fantasy 14's Evercold expansion. As part of the Berlin Fan Fest, we've also found out that the first new FF14 Evercold job will be a hulking tank called the Bastion, that Final Fantasy 14 is getting a crossover with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, and much more. It feels like Final Fantasy 14 is going for it, and that might be just what the MMO needs.
Final Fantasy 14 Evercold releases January, 2027.
