So this post goes on main because it's not about the game itself, but about the guy who was responsible for a lot of it.
YoshiP, the director and producer for the game Final Fantasy XIV of which I'm a huge a fan, once went on record in front of a crowd announcing that the game will slowly be unlocking gendered gear for both masculine and feminine models. That is to say, they're going back to a lot of old gear set and making it so that even if you're on a male model, you can wear "traditionally feminine" clothing like dresses etc just fine. The personal anecdote he shared along with it was because he saw a mother react repulsively towards someone wearing the supposedly wrong gendered outfit on his commute one day, pulling her child away while this person was just walking and minding their own business, and that greatly saddened him. So even though he only worked on a game, he wanted to give players and potential players somewhere they could express themselves freely.
This was a pretty incredibly rare move for an MMORPG, never mind one that constantly came out with new gear sets multiple times per expansion. Game devs were going back to old equipment models and redoing them for both model genders, and we'd had consistent updates on hairstyles, clothes, all kinds of things since then.
I'm not here to say that Naoki Yoshida is a perfect person who always deserves everyone's support. I can think of at least one instance where I wish he would do better, lmao. But he's been incredibly professional with his product and also understands that it's a collaborative work of art and game, and he's always been very kind towards the people who play his game and who his product immediately affects, as well. He also went on record directly telling harassment on the English voice actor for a major character in the new expansion, who IRL is a trans woman, to stop. She posted that at a later FanFest, he met up with her to ask how she was doing and hung out with her specifically, afterwards.
I dunno. The recent FanFest reminded me of this. He brought out a senior member of the battle design system to introduce some earth-shaking changes to said battle system and other parts of FFXIV, and spent a lot of time introducing him and showing the team's strong support for the guy. Players are most cynical and abusive when it comes to system changes in MMOs, and considering how YoshiP had been in the past, his kindness and support for the guy felt incredibly purposeful and yet still very sincere.
I would play FFXIV on its own merits, because it was truly an incredible game and story that had very literally reshaped the worst parts of my life when I needed it the most, but it's very nice to know that it's made by someone who's kind to the trans/queer community and continues to show his support by designing his game to accommodate people's self expression, while still keeping the quality top notch.
