Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers was released in mid-2019 to an almost unanimous standing ovation from the community and critics alike. One of the strengths of this expansion is its reverence for the stories that have been told in installments past. However, it tells these tales not through the sweeping statements about morality and the nature of war that veteran players might be used to, but rather through a focus on well-known characters within the game as well as their relationships to the world around them and each other.

Natsuko Ishikawa, the lead main scenario writer for Shadowbringers, and Takeo Suzuki, art team lead, are some of the minds who were responsible for reframing established character narratives and refining familiar systems in order to carry out the above. The design philosophies adopted by their respective departments have been instrumental in allowing this expansion to have delivered what is arguably the game’s most engaging content to date. GameSpot spoke to both Suzuki and Ishikawa to gain some insight into their process.

Natsuko Ishikawa (center) and Takeo Suzuki (right) during the Shadowbringers Post-mortem at PAX West 2019. (credit: PAX)

The latest installment in Final Fantasy XIV’s already-impressive canon has been praised for the way that it managed to weave in years of old lore whilst still managing to serve up a story that is potentially the biggest and the best that Square Enix’s flagship MMO has ever told. Stormblood, its predecessor, felt a little more like a clean slate in terms of expansion design when it took the Warrior of Light to a whole new continent and to a whole new conflict that really had only parts of it hinted at in previous quests.

By comparison, one might wonder whether or not the team at Square Enix felt constrained at all by the sheer amount of callbacks in the lore and threads of plotlines from A Realm Reborn that made up such a significant part of Shadowbringers. However, Ishikawa adopted the same core philosophy towards writing the Main Scenario for this expansion that she had when she was in charge of writing scenario content for Stormblood. “With Shadowbringers, it feels like it’s just a similar approach but on a larger scale. You’re pulling from other elements that have existed and kind of connecting the dots from there, creating one big story from there,” maintained Ishikawa. “We can’t say that there wasn’t any sort of limitation at all, but it was still a really fun experience for me, that I’m able to carry on the narrative that existed for a while and to expand upon it and building another story.”

This ability to draw on the wealth of established lore with Final Fantasy XIV is something that the design team at Square Enix sees as a strength. Suzuki, who has been working with the company since the Chrono Cross days, agrees with Ishikawa that what they’ve done with Shadowbringers is one of the great advantages of the game and that referencing its storied past is a boon.

This philosophy that focuses on the building blocks and small moments drawn from familiar reference points is perhaps best illustrated by the design process behind the cities of Eulmore and Amaurot: two new environments for you to explore in Shadowbringers that conveyed very poignant tales whilst also clearly being quest hubs. This meant that their primary mechanical focus was to place players convincingly within the central conflict of the game’s world. Eulmore, in particular, was a symbol of the corruption and the antagonism that seethed below the surface of Norvrandt for a large portion of the expansion.

Eulmore is a lavish upper-class utopia with a very ugly side.

In order to accurately convey the unsettling nature of Eulmore and its surroundings, Suzuki’s team had to consider not only the aesthetic of the location but also to put themselves in the shoes of the NPCs inhabiting the world in that particular area. After the art design team received information about the basics of each town, step one for Suzuki was to think about the type of people who would live in Eulmore.

“We do have the poorer people living at the base of that area, and so the background design team would try to imagine ‘What kind of life do these characters live?’ in that slum area. They then start to think about what elements we want to place in that world,” he elaborated. “From there, it’s very interesting, because it goes back to the game planning team and the game design team. They see certain elements like ‘Oh, they utilize pieces from broken ships’ or ‘There’s a flower they planted there’ and go ‘Oh, that’d be cool if they tied into a quest we wanted to place in that area’”.

This collaborative process is reflective of the emphasis that Square Enix has placed on interconnecting elements in Shadowbringers, ranging from the approach to developing new in-game lore to ensuring character continuity and growth for fan-favorites like the Scions (who have been around since A Realm Reborn). When quizzed on how familiar faces in the new expansion have grown and changed in an empathetic way, both Suzuki and Ishikawa identified characters that they had a soft spot for.

Ishikawa noted that Urianger had come a long way since his introduction in the base game. “When he was first introduced in A Realm Reborn you kind of had this Shakespearean feel; you had no clue what he’s saying,” she noted. “But by the time Shadowbringers hit, he’s choosing his words more carefully, and you actually see that he’s trying to choose words that people can “get.” I think the people that he traveled with have impacted him and he’s started to become more considerate about how he’s relaying and conveying what he feels.”

While Urianger’s manner of speech and his behavior have long been a source of amusement for fans, the way that the writing team incorporated those subtle changes to his demeanor whilst also crafting an entirely new personal arc for the Elezen gave both meaning and nuance to what was previously seen as a hammy, over-the-top affectation.

We can’t say that there wasn’t any sort of limitation at all, but it was still a really fun experience for me, that I’m able to carry on the narrative that existed for a while and to expand upon it and building another story. – Natsuko Ishikawa

It’s finding those little pockets of storytelling and capitalizing on them which helps balance Shadowbringers on that knife’s edge between characters being so different that they lose their relatability, and characters being so firmly entrenched in old lore that they don’t grow with the world around them. The most famous legacy character referenced in the latest expansion, Ardbert, could very easily have fallen into the latter category especially considering Suzuki’s fun fact that the team had actually repurposed his art assets for the expansion.

“When Ardbert was first introduced, he was the Warrior of Darkness that was responsible for the First falling under the influence under the flood of Light,” said Suzuki, who was of the opinion that Ardbert’s story didn’t initially conclude very well. “But through Shadowbringers, you talk with him and it feels like he gets a sort of resolution to his regrets and what he felt he was not able to accomplish, so that was very memorable for me.”

Small moments of storytelling were put into the Trust system; Alisaie keeps her composure during tragic events.

Suzuki and Ishikawa’s observations on the care that went into fleshing out the supporting cast of characters only reaffirms that Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion isn’t another re-do of the Chosen One trope but rather a story that places immense value on the power of friendship in the face of adversity. This is especially true of the Trust system, which Ishikawa recalls fondly even though she admitted to struggling with how to depict the various NPCs and their reactions to dungeons to account for player variability. “I also had to consider where I draw the line in depicting these NPCs and their reactions,” said Ishikawa. “To what point do we want to have these NPCs react to their environment and still make it enjoyable either way, whether you take them to the dungeon or not?”

This focus on adaptability and worldbuilding is one of the hallmarks of Shadowbringers. Through main scenario writing that focuses on those two elements and the game’s companions, players are given the chance to feel the impact of in-game decisions made as far back as A Realm Reborn. This was especially true for Ardbert, who is just one of many examples where lore has been refined over the course of a title in a humanizing way that is both relatable and meaningful, and ties into forward-looking content created specifically for the expansion like Eulmore and Amaurot. “It’s something that we wouldn’t be able to accomplish with a single standalone game,” says Ishikawa of the creative process behind this expansion, and she’s right. Shadowbringers is not shy about embracing all the lore that came before; it has evolved the precepts that made old content and characters so enjoyable, and it tells the most compelling tale in Final Fantasy XIV’s history because of it.

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CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is one of 2020’s most-anticipated games, and it came to PAX Australia this week in a big way for its first public showing in the country. On PAX Aus Day 1, CD Projekt Red filled the Melbourne Convention Centre’s biggest theatre with excited fans who got the special treat of seeing nearly an hour’s worth of gameplay footage that showed off more of Night City and a number of new abilities.

Also in Melbourne for PAX was CD Projekt Red’s John Mamais, the head of the company’s Krakow office. The studio is creating about one-third of the content for Cyberpunk 2077, while it also developed the game’s new cutscene technology and other aspects of the title. GameSpot spoke with Mamais–who has been with CDPR since 2011 when he was a producer on The Witcher 2–and he told us more about local issues like potential censorship from Australia’s Classification Board, mutiplayer support for Cyberpunk 2077, and the possibility of a Nintendo Switch port.

In terms of potential censorship of Cyberpunk 2077 in Australia, Mamais said he does not think the game will have any issues clearing the local Classification board like other titles, including South Park: The Stick of Truth, have in the past.

“I was [concerned about censorship] because I know Australia has issues with drugs and the other thing is sexualised violence–those are the two things that can kill your product [in Australia],” Mamais said. “But I’ve been looking into it [over] the last couple of days. It seems like we’re safe. You don’t get rewarded for [using] drugs as far as I know in the game. The player doesn’t do any kind of sexualised violence at all where it’s really tasteless; we wouldn’t do anything like that.”

On the subject of multiplayer in Cyberpunk 2077, Mamais teased that CD Projekt Red as a company is now finally expanding enough to be able to work on multiple AAA games simultaneously. One of these could be a multiplayer-focused Cyberpunk game, though it could also be a Witcher title, a new IP, a licensed game, or something else entirely.

“It’s public knowledge that we want to make multiple AAA titles at the same time in the company. We haven’t been able to but now we’re growing to a certain extent and we might be able to do that in the future; at least we hope so,” he said. “We’ll see how well Cyberpunk does. It’s not for me to say what they’ll be. I can tell you what I hope they’ll be. I like Cyberpunk, I’d like to keep making Cyberpunk games. I also like The Witcher, I’d like to keep making Witcher-type games. It could be anything. Some new IP or some licensed IP. Who knows? It’s not decided yet.

Cyberpunk 2077 is set to launch in April 2020, which is a few months before the PlayStation 5 (which is now officially confirmed!) and the next-generation Xbox are expected to release in Holiday 2020. Mamais didn’t confirm if Cyberpunk 2077 will be upgraded or improved for these consoles, but he said more powerful systems will afford CD Projekt Red a number of new and exciting opportunities.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Mamais said of the coming next-gen consoles. “It’s always cool to have new consoles coming out and I can’t wait to work on those things. We’ll see what we can do with those. It’s fun watching games evolve; they’re looking more and more realistic, which is–I like working on games like that. The more powerful the technology, or the consoles, the more it is [good] for me as a game developer.”

You can check out the biggest talking points from our interview with Mamais about Cyberpunk 2077 below. The game is slated for release across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in April 2020.

PAX Aus runs October 11-13 in Melbourne, and GameSpot is on hand at the show all weekend to bring you news and further coverage. For more, check out a rundown of all the panels in the GameSpot Theatre.

Read Next: Cyberpunk 2077: Gameplay, Multiplayer, Release Date, And Everything We Know So Far

On Potential Australia Censorship

I was [concerned] because I know Australia has issues with drugs and the other thing is sexualised violence–those are the two things that can kill your product. But I’ve been looking into it [over] the last couple of days. It seems like we’re safe. You don’t get rewarded for [using] drugs as far as I know in the game. The player doesn’t do any kind of sexualised violence at all where it’s really tasteless; we wouldn’t do anything like that.

On Multiplayer In Cyberpunk 2077

It’s public knowledge that we want to make multiple AAA titles at the same time in the company. We haven’t been able to but now we’re growing to a certain extent and we might be able to do that in the future; at least we hope so.

We’ll see how well Cyberpunk does. It’s not for me to say what they’ll be. I can tell you what I hope they’ll be. I like Cyberpunk, I’d like to keep making Cyberpunk games. I also like The Witcher, I’d like to keep making Witcher-type games. It could be anything. Some new IP or some licensed IP. Who knows? It’s not decided yet.

“I think it’s a bad idea to do microtransactions after you release a game. It seems like it’s very profitable, though.” — Mamais

On Microtransactions

I think it’s a bad idea to do microtransactions after you release a game. It seems like it’s very profitable, though. It’s probably a hard decision for the guy that runs the business to decide if we should do it or not. But if everyone hates it, why would we do something like that and lose the goodwill of our customers?

On Post-Release Plans For Cyberpunk 2077

[The Witcher 3’s free DLC with big paid expansions] was a good model for us; it worked pretty well for The Witcher 3. I don’t see why we wouldn’t try to replicate that model with Cyberpunk 2077. We’re not talking about that yet, but it seems like that would be the smart way to go.

On Confidence In Hitting April 2020 Release Date

A lot of people do [feel good about the April 2020 date and] some people are scared about the date. It’s a normal kind of mixture of feeling about that date in the studio. That’s the directive; we need to keep that date.

On The Vibe At CD Projekt Red Right Now

Everyone is working really hard right now because it’s a tight deadline for us; the game is really big and large-scope. We’re pushing it to the wall. I guess the vibe in the office is there’s always a level of excitement there based on results that we get from going to conferences like this [PAX Aus] and seeing people really excited about the game. So that keeps the hype up but it also puts some pressure on, so that’s kind of the vibe. You’re in a vice, in a way, which takes its toll on the team but there is … a healthy, extrinsic kind of pressure to make [the team] really excel.

“Everyone is working really hard right now because it’s a tight deadline for us; the game is really big and large-scope. We’re pushing it to the wall.” — Mamais

On CDPR Krakow’s Specific Contributions To Cyberpunk 2077

In terms of content, maybe it’s about a third of the game [developed by CDPR Krakow]. We’re doing some specific things. For Cyberpunk, for the narrative part, for the cinematic part, there is something new called a Scene System. It’s like our dialogue and cinematic system that occurs within the context of the gameplay of the game. It’s really important because one of the pillars of the development of the project is the idea of full immersion and this new Scene System is all about full immersion. You don’t break into a letterbox formula and see this cutscene taking place, you’re actually in the cutscene and you can control the character or the camera, there are different levels of control depending on the cutscene. It’s fully immersive; it doesn’t take you out of the experience at all. So we’re doing that and also other things too.

On The Power Of New Consoles

It’s going to be awesome. It’s always cool to have new consoles coming out and I can’t wait to work on those things. We’ll see what we can do with those. It’s fun watching games evolve; they’re looking more and more realistic, which is–I like working on games like that. The more powerful the technology, or the consoles, the more it is [good] for me as a game developer.

On What He’s Personally Learned From Working On Cyberpunk 2077

Something that we need to do better, from my perspective, is finish story sooner. Story is so important to the process for the games we make. We iterate on it quite a long time. Since everything else revolves around the narrative, the sooner it’s brushed up the better it is for the development of a game. It’s a catch-22, you don’t know [how good the story is] until you get it in the game and start playing quests and see how it feels. If something doesn’t feel right, you have to change it again. So it’s kind of a tug of war. The more you can get done up front, conceptually, and locked in, the better off you are.

On Feature Creep

It’s very controversial in a way, for game development in general, feature creep–how do you control it. Sometimes you can control it and sometimes you can’t. It depends on if a director thinks we should do something or whomever thinks we should do something and it doesn’t fit the schedule, it’s like, if it’s good enough you have to make it fit the schedule by pushing something else out or you have to confront the idea and say, ‘Okay we’re not going to do that, we can’t afford to do it.’ Unfortunately, it’s not so black and white. Sometimes you have to do everything, and it requires more work.

On A Possible Switch Port Of Cyberpunk 2077

Who would have thought a game like The Witcher 3 would be possible on Switch, so who knows? I guess we’ll see, if we `decide to put it on the Switch, if we can do it. Probably not.

On If There Will There Be Multiplayer Support For Cyberpunk 2077 At Launch

No

On The Netflix Witcher TV Show

We’re friends with those guys–it’s Platige, the guys who worked on a lot of cinematics for us in the past. We’re not involved with that series at all in any way as far as I know. Maybe some kind of personal connections in the studios, but not in any official capacity.

On The Reaction To Keanu Reeves In The Game

I think the deal is kind of locked down. We defined what his role was going to be and we’re sticking to that. But the reception has been huge. I didn’t expect it to be so huge. [The marketing team] are probably sitting around now thinking about what else can we do with Keanu because it was so well received.

On The Story Of Cyberpunk 2077

On the surface it’s a pretty simple story. I hope I’m not saying too much because the story is implied in the marketing material at PAX–it’s about this immortality chip that it’s like a quest of yours to find this technology. The whole story revolves around this tech, and I can’t give anything else away about this idea.

“It’s really important for the studio. We don’t want to fail at this. I don’t think that would be very healthy for the studio.” — Mamais

On The Stakes For Cyberpunk 2077

It’s really important for the studio. We don’t want to fail at this. I don’t think that would be very healthy for the studio. The studio is comprised of other kinds of companies as well but the majority of our people are working on Cyberpunk. There are a lot of internal financial expectations for it to do well.

Why He Loves Making Games

The stuff we’re working on is really cool. Technology is really interesting, to be part of the way things are evolving technically. As hardware grows, so does the software and the tech around it. To see this stuff come to life and to be part of that process is really interesting. It kind of becomes your life. You sign up for that when you get into this because, and I don’t mean to sound too arrogant, but it’s kind of like a higher art form in a way. So it’s cool to part of that process.

You sacrifice some things to do that and be part of that. There are a lot of people who come into the industry that are fresh; they don’t really understand what it takes to do it. So we get a lot of new guys coming in, and they go, ‘Oh god, this is like too much.’ But then we have other guys come in from Rockstar Games, and they’re like, ‘This is not even crunch!’ We’re doing the best we can to keep the work under control. But sometimes when you’re doing some big-ass game like this, it’s not always possible to do that. It takes really hard work to make it really awesome.