Armor from Final Fantasy XIV has appeared in the Closed Beta for Babylon’s Fall; as Yoshi-P granted permission to help out.
After the NDA lifted on Phase 3 of the Closed Beta for Babylon’s Fall, some fans noted there was some armor that looked suspiciously close to armor sets found in Final Fantasy XIV. Not only do they share the same shape, but even smaller details like stitching and emblems appear to be the same. You can find examples below.
I'm laughing (and maybe sorry) at how much this has gained traction 💀
Here's some more fun: pic.twitter.com/AoTh55QGCL— Hina ⛩ ☀️🏳️⚧️🦋 rasenkaikyo (@duchessdynamic) November 18, 2021
It should be noted that both Babylon’s Fall and Final Fantasy XIV are published by Square Enix. As such, it would have been incredibly unlikely PlatinumGames would have gotten away with swiping designs, and it would be more likely Square Enix granted permission. It seems that was exactly the case.
Babylon’s Fall Producer Yosuke Saito stated that “gear and emote data” was borrowed from Final Fantasy XIV. When Babylon’s Fall was presented at a company meeting, Final Fantasy XIV Producer & Director Naoki Yoshida was in attendance. Yoshida (also known as Yoshi-P) offered help, leading to the developers carefully implementing the data in co-ordination with the Final Fantasy XIV team.
“By borrowing data, we’ve been able to implement a much wider variety of gear and emotes in the game than we’d originally planned,” Saito explains. Nonetheless, this introduction to mid-level range gear is not representative of the whole (prevalent in the Closed Beta), and that most gear will be unique to Babylon’s Fall.
Yoshi P also shared his thoughts in the statement. While a little jealous of him working on a hardcore action-based hack-and-slash game, he knew preparing the gear variations would be difficult. As a gamer and fan of online games himself, he “couldn’t be happier if Babylon’s Fall succeeds and reinvigorates Japanese online games while boosting the number of players in the genre.”
“So, I said, ‘Let’s use FFXIV’s assets too. We have so many, it’d be a shame to limit them to FFXIV alone,’ and that’s how it all started,” Yoshi P explain. “Back then, I didn’t realize that it would become such a hot topic…” The armor will have subtle design changes and adjustments, and will be supervised by the Final Fantasy XIV team to ensure they fit.
The reuse of armor may also help to advertise Final Fantasy XIV in a round-about way. Yoshi-P certain did not miss the opportunity in the statement. “Oh, and for those of you who haven’t played FFXIV yet, please take this opportunity to try it out. We do have a free trial available…”
Yoshi-P has often been lauded as the savior of Final Fantasy XIV, due to the major issues the game had at launch. After being rebooted, the game is now heading to its fourth expansion, Endwalker. Some have attributed this success to Yoshi-P being a gamer himself. As even rivalries break down, it seems when it comes to video games, that’s armor-e!
Babylon’s Fall is currently in development for Windows PC (Steam), PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
Final Fantasy XIV is available for Windows PC, Mac (via the SE Store, and Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and still planned for Xbox One. In case you missed it, you can find our Shadowbringers expansion review here (we can’t recommend it enough!)
The Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker expansion was recently delayed to December 7th. In case you missed it, we covered all the changes coming with patch 6.0 when Endwalker launches, and beyond [1, 2].
