Final Fantasy 14 Probably Won't Add Controversial Story Feature Yet

gamerant.com:

Final Fantasy 14 doesn’t have any plans to add a free story skip to the game any time soon for fear of ruining the experience. A free story skip may not happen now, but the ever-growing length of the Final Fantasy 14 Main Scenario means it could end up happening eventually.

With over 10 years and four expansions under its belt, Final Fantasy 14 is an immense game; the story alone takes hundreds of hours to complete in its entirety. Akin to five JRPGs in one, starting Final Fantasy 14 is daunting, but as an MMO, attracting new players to the game is key to its success. The new Dawntrail expansion is set to begin a new chapter for Final Fantasy 14, prompting fans to wonder if the critically-acclaimed MMORPG would add a way for players to start the game from this new point – a feature director and producer Naoki Yoshida confirmed he was considering during last year’s Fan Festival.

However, it seems like Final Fantasy 14 won’t be adding a free story skip in the game at the moment. According to an interview with PC Gamer, Yoshida put the discussion to rest for now, confirming no such feature would be added in Dawntrail. “I'm concerned that if the globally acclaimed storyline can be skipped through a function, the value of the FF14 game itself will be diminished,” he said. “So far, FF14 has been able to continue to grow while keeping the story as the main focus.” Despite this, Yoshida also recognized valid concerns about the growing length of the story, and that he may revisit the idea in the future.

Right now, players can technically skip all the way up to Endwalker using the Tales of Adventure story skip items purchased from the Final Fantasy 14 cash shop. However, in order to actually do this, fans would have to buy both the skip and a One Hero’s Journey level boost to get a job to level 80 – each of which costs $25. While Final Fantasy 14 may add a story skip for Endwalker as well, there is no way to blast through these expansions without investing a lot of time or