Who is the lead designer on FF14?
Naoki Yoshida
Yoshida eventually joined Square Enix in 2004 and became the head of the Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road series as well as a game designer of Dragon Quest X in its early stages.[6][7] In December 2010, he was taken off the Dragon Quest team and placed in charge of the staff that developed the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Final Fantasy XIV, which had been unsuccessful since its launch several months before.[2][8] Then company president Yoichi Wada attributed this decision to Yoshida's experience, "charismatic" leadership skills and "passionate" will to satisfy customers.[8] Yoshida was not acquainted with any of the Final Fantasy XIV team's members and thus had to demonstrate his dedication to the project first to gain their trust as director. He then talked with the individual developers to find out their ideas for improvements to the revised version known as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. He proceeded with describing to the team the precise goals to achieve.[2] Yoshida drew some inspiration from his long-lasting enthusiasm for MMORPGs, having played such titles as Ultima Online, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2.[6][9] As a result of his direction, reviewers and commentators have credited Yoshida with "rescuing" the Final Fantasy XIV project.[10][11][12][13]