Final Fantasy XIV’s Endwalker expansion is bringing male Viera to the game. In an interview with PlayStation Blog, Final Fantasy XIV Producer Naoki Yoshida revealed that the development team worked on implementing the male Viera “between their normal work”. In the same interview, Yoshida also explained the origins of the upcoming new Reaper job and gave insight into the new 24-player raid that will be added with the Endwalker expansion.
Previously, Yoshida stated during the last Shadowbringers expansion launch that the dev team would not add any more new playable races to the game. This was due to the fact that if there are more playable races, the “tasks required with each patch update will multiply”. Additionally, obtainable gear, cutscenes, animations, and emotes would “also need to be fitted to match the body shapes of the Viera”.
However, Yoshida also explained that a significant portion of the fanbase was asking for a playable male Viera which influenced the team’s decision:
There was a significant amount of people around the world asking for male Viera and female Hrothgar—which was expected of course—but I was going to follow through with my stance of not adding any more playable races. At the same time, our graphics staff on the development team wanted to explore all options to see what they could do to figure out a way to somehow realize this request from the players.
To this, Yoshida stated that the team “us[ed] what free time they had in between their normal work on the patches” to squeeze in two more races into their development schedule. By giving these races a staggered release, Yoshida explained, the dev team was able to alleviate the impact on their resources. He also confirmed that they would add the female Hrothgar, a feline race that was introduced with the Shadowbringers expansion, at a later date.
Final Fantasy XIV recently launched for the PlayStation 5 alongside the new Patch 5.55 and includes a new trophy list that is considerably longer than its PS4 predecessor. It also celebrated reaching over 22 million users back in April, as the critically-acclaimed MMORPG continues to ramp up towards its biggest expansion yet, which will close out the game’s current story arc.
[Source: PlayStation Blog]
