Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida has said the development team is exploring ways to make the game less intimidating for newcomers, given that the MMO now requires players to work through five expansions and hundreds of hours of story before reaching the current content. This matters because FF14's long, mandatory main scenario has increasingly been cited as a barrier to entry, and addressing it could be key to sustaining the game's player base as it continues to grow older and more content-heavy.

Yoshida has not detailed specific solutions yet, but has acknowledged the scale of the problem and indicated the team is actively looking into potential fixes, which could include streamlining or trimming parts of the story new players must complete. The comments come as Final Fantasy XIV continues to add expansions on top of an already extensive back catalogue, making the onboarding "wall" bigger with each new release.