Square Enix say sorry for Final Fantasy XIV, announce staff changes and free trial extension

Final Fantasy XIV - Raaaage

CEO of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada has posted a message to Final Fantasy XIV purchasers apologising for the state of the game, adding that the team in charge of the MMO had been restructured and the free trial period extended even further

Writing on the official Final Fantasy XIV site, Yoichi Wada said "while more than two months have passed since the official launch of FINAL FANTASY XIV service, we deeply regret that the game has yet to achieve the level of enjoyability that FINAL FANTASY fans have come to expect from the franchise, and for this we offer our sincerest of apologies."

He goes on to outline some changes to the staff working on the MMO, which includes a new director and producer, Naoki Yoshida, who is described as "a passionate individual for whom customer satisfaction has always taken top priority."

Wada adds "we realize time is of the essence and are fully determined to provide our customers with quality service. It is because of this that we ask our customers to be patient until we are able to confidently present them with a concrete plan outlining FINAL FANTASY XIV's new direction. The free trial period will be extended until that time."

For more information on the planned improvements and some ideas of where it all went wrong for Final Fantasy XIV, check out our interview with the game's producers, and our Final Fantasy XIV review .

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.