The Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters have gone down pretty well with fans, reigniting interest in the six classics that got the series going before Final Fantasy 7 changed everything. Now, it seems that Square Enix wanted to take things even further, getting its MMO players to try out the retro RPGs.
At some point in development, the devs tried to get the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters playable in Final Fantasy 14. Yes, within the MMO itself. This would be been accomplished by turning them into playable games in the Gold Saucer, not requiring players to download another game, or even close Final Fantasy 14.
This sounds too good to be true, because it was. As explained by game director Naoki Yoshida at FanFest (thanks, GamesRadar+), it was just too "weird" to get working, so the whole thing was dropped.
"So because [Pixel Remaster is] running on middleware, if you want to implement that into 14, you'd have to build another system that can play back the middleware inside the game," says Yoshida. "So it's like you're building a system of a game to play a system of a game. It's just this weird configuration."
He adds that it would take a "super programmer" to get it working, so it doesn't seem that this is a priority for the devs right now. Still, the fact that it was considered at all is pretty significant and shows that Square Enix isn't against the idea of having a similar crossover in the future. Who knows? Maybe this super programmer will join the team one day, and make this ambitious Gold Saucer game a reality. It would certainly act as a great way to win over fans who exclusively stick to the MMO, letting them play the older games in a way that's more accessible.
Needless to say that both Yoshida and Final Fantasy 14 players have more than enough going on to keep them busy, even without the Pixel Remasters in the MMO. The next expansion, Dawntrail, is launching in the summer of next year. Around this time, we can expect to be playing Final Fantasy 14 on Xbox Series X/S too, further expanding the playerbase. Yoshida has also revealed that he hopes to get three more expansions released before his 60th birthday in ten years' time, so he's clearly got long-term plans for the game as it enters its thirteenth year of life.
That's not even touching on the projects that Final Fantasy as a whole has in the pipeline. It only just launched Final Fantasy 16, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is expected sometime early next year.