Yoshi-P Is Debating Letting New Players Skip The Hydaelyn And Zodiark Saga, But Won't Be Taking The MMORPG F2P

With Dawntrail on the horizon, Final Fantasy XIV players are staring down a new saga. We’re leaving Hydaelyn and Zodiark behind and getting ready for something new in the MMORPG. For existing players, it’s more or less business as usual – particularly for those who have made it to the end of Endwalker and have been more or less keeping up with the post-expansion content.

But, what if you’re a new player, joining when (or after) Dawntrail comes out? There’s a lot of content between A Realm Reborn and where everyone else is at. Speaking from experience, players are looking at a few months of play time to get caught up – unless they want to throw down cash for the story skip.

During a recent interview, Sportskeeda asked Yoshi-P about this, noting the frustration that some players feel at how long it takes to catch up, as well as the sentiment that the early quests are a bit much. Yoshi-P was a bit elusive in his response, but he did indicate that the team is working on something for players who want to skip the Hydaelyn and Zodiark Saga and go straight to 6.1 with just a bit of lore summary and an introduction to important characters.

He’s not committed to the whole skip thing, though. He’s just not sure it’s the right thing to do, and he really doesn't like the idea of skipping right to 7.0. Given how story-driven Final Fantasy XIV is, it’s easy to see why he’d still be debating it.

On a related note, Yoshi-P also spoke with Eurogamer recently who asked the age-old MMO question about whether the game might go free-to-play. The short answer is ‘no’. The longer answer is that they’ll be expanding on the free trial, but the game itself won’t be made free “at the moment”. Yoshi-P explained that a lot of time and money have been invested in developing the game and the sale of the expansion is important to keeping the game alive.