FF14 Evercold: Koji Fox Hints at Character Sliders and Details Evolved Mode

Final Fantasy 14’s next expansion, Evercold, is set to bring wider character customization and a second way to play every job. At PAX Australia, Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and Global Community Producer Toshio Murouchi discussed what players can expect, including the community’s long-running request for body sliders and the still-unanswered details of Evolved Mode.

The expansion is drawing closer: patch 7.57 updated the teaser scene shown at the end of Dawntrail’s main scenario. There’s more to learn before Evercold arrives, but the team has already outlined a substantial round of character options. The new choices build on details shared by Game Director Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida during his Fanfest Berlin keynote.

Customization keeps expanding

Version 8.0 will add a broader range of colors for players to apply to features such as skin, hair and eyes. Patch 8.1 is due to add more specific appearance controls: Miqo’te players will be able to remove war paint, Lalafell and Viera players can hide nose shading, and Au Ra players will be able to adjust their horns separately from their face shape.

That sets up the question Pezz put to Koji and Murouchi: could the game also add sliders for players’ characters’ bodies? Koji met the suggestion with an exaggerated look of surprise before asking whether Pezz meant “sliders of the posterior area.” The audience laughed, but the request has been a recurring topic among players for years.

Koji recalled that players were asking for butt sliders as far back as the first Fan Festival. He says Yoshida’s reaction at the Anaheim event earlier this year gave him reason to think the idea has advanced. “I think it’s something. I like to feel that it’s moved from a question of ‘if’ to a question of ‘when,’” Koji said, recalling Yoshida’s pondering response onstage.

That impression fits with Yoshida’s comments at Fanfest Berlin about becoming more open to roleplaying and easing some of his previous reservations about character creation. Koji joked that the community has been wearing Yoshida down for a decade and urged players to keep asking. “The FF14 community, if there’s one thing that brings us together, it’s butt sliders.” The joke points to a broader design shift: the team is talking about customization as an ongoing part of the game, rather than a one-time set of additions.

“At the end of your day, your avatar is you,” Koji said. More ways to adjust even small details can help players make a character feel more personal, he explained. The plans reach beyond facial features and colors, extending to housing, gear and action skins—custom animations for certain moves. Koji said the team wants players to have more ways to shape their characters with Evercold and in the years that follow. “If the culmination of that is butt sliders, then so be it.”

Evolved Mode needs a closer look

Evercold will also introduce Evolved Mode, a major rework of every job intended to make its play feel more streamlined and better connected to its class identity. The developers have said the changes aren’t specifically about making jobs easier. Evolved Mode will sit alongside the existing Reborn Mode, leaving players with both approaches available.

So far, the team has shown Paladin, White Mage, Bard and Dragoon in Evolved Mode. Murouchi cautioned that Japan Fan Festival may not have time for more demonstrations: explaining the system could take up the event. He said the team plans a dedicated Producer Live Letter after the festival and before Evercold’s January launch window, where it will walk through every job. Koji expects to help with translation, even if the presentation takes “however many hours” it needs.

One issue still needs a clearer answer: how much stronger might jobs feel in Evolved Mode? Yoshida has previously suggested the difference could be small, but even a modest damage advantage can raise questions for players entering high-end trials and raids. Koji offered a tentative response, stressing that he works in localization rather than on the battle team. Based on what he has heard, he expects any damage gap to be “very negligible” and not a deciding factor.

Koji said some variation may be hard to avoid because the two systems differ in places. He also speculated that a slight damage increase could encourage players to try Evolved Mode, while emphasizing that this was his own view rather than a confirmed explanation from the developers. The distinction matters: until the team lays out the numbers and design goals, players don’t have enough detail to judge how the modes will compare in demanding group content.

Koji acknowledged that the team should revisit the damage question in a future Live Letter. Earlier discussion at Fan Festival was limited, he said, which left room for speculation. The planned Evolved Mode livestream should provide a more detailed comparison. For players weighing whether to switch, that explanation will be as important as the job demonstrations.

Cross-region matchmaking is in testing

The PAX Australia conversation also covered cross-region matchmaking, which is being tested on Japanese servers. If those tests go well, the team plans to move on to testing in the United States and then Europe. Murouchi said the longer-term aim could be to let players travel between regional data centers, including those in the United States and Europe. He cautioned that this step may take time, describing the work as a gradual effort to make the game feel like “one huge world.”

Evercold’s updates therefore span individual appearance choices, job design and the connections between player communities. The next major details to watch are the full Evolved Mode presentation and how the team explains its balance goals; the character customization roadmap, meanwhile, leaves the door open for still more options.