Final Fantasy XIV—the second MMORPG in the long-running JRPG series laden with drama, swords, spells, and enough hair product to pollute multiple planetary biomes—is no stranger to crossovers. While so far they’ve mostly been with other games, its director has been thinking about another teamup he wants…with a very nerdy caveat.
Naoki Yoshida, the creative director of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, sat down with Variety recently to discuss the game’s upcoming expansion Shadowbringers. The third major content release for the MMO brings with it a host of new features, including a crossover with the sci-fi action-RPG/Existential Crisis Simulator Nier: Automata. This prompted Variety to ask if Yoshida had any other dream collaborations he wanted to come to XIV. Outside of the realm of games, Yoshida had his eyes on one rather meaty idea—a team up with George R.R. Martin for a Game of Thrones crossover:
This is not a game, but Game of Thrones is a very interesting work, and it might be cool to do something with them.
Martin’s no stranger to video games—especially this week, when it was officially confirmed he was collaborating with luminary Souls designer Hidetaka Miyazaki on the upcoming FromSoftware title Elden Ring. And in the past, Martin has put his seal of approval on other Game of Thrones gaming projects, so it’s not like it’d be out of the ordinary for him to work with Yoshida and his FFXIV team on a potential collaboration. But Yoshida himself had a rather funny caveat. He wants the A Song of Ice and Fire books finished before any time spent away from them could be spent working on a Final Fantasy collaboration:
Unfortunately, I don’t think George R. R. Martin was at E3 this year.
Just finish writing the books!
He’s working on that new game with Hidetaka Miyazaki from FromSoftware, Elden Ring.
Oh yes, that news we’ve heard. The series ended on HBO, but we want the books to conclude.
Add Yoshida’s name to the throngs of people just patiently—and occasionally not so patiently—waiting for The Winds of Winter and its followup to finally arrive. Personally I just hope FFXIV’s servers are still running when this Game of Thrones crossover eventually happens in like, 2038, at this point.
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