‘Final Fantasy 14’ Quickly Redesigns Icon After Provoking Players’ Fear Of Holes
Image via Square Enix
Final Fantasy 14 (FF14)’s Endwalker expansion is scheduled for release later this year, and the team has been releasing news about it prior to the date. One of the new features is the addition of the Sage job, which comes with its own icon. However, players’ feedback after their trypophobia was triggered has been so strong that the team has now changed the initial design.
Trypophobia is a strong aversion or phobia of clusters of small dots or holes. While it’s not an officially recognized medical condition, it does elicit strong reactions of disgust or discomfort. Things like honeycombs, hatching tadpoles, crumpets, or even the iPhone’s recent multi-camera “cluster” make the skin crawl. It’s believed that the aversion comes from the natural human instinct to avoid signs of sickness, like decaying flesh, or what looks like oncoming insect infestations.
Each job in the FF14 universe has its own logo or icon for players to be able to easily distinguish between items or characters’ roles. The Sage symbol is comprised of four blades, or nouliths. In the now switched-out emblem, the top three had a tiny opening on the ends, and the grouping of the nouliths was enough to set trigger players’ reactions to the holes.
In a thread on the official Japanese forum, players expressed how uncomfortable the icon made them feel. It currently spans 24 pages.
This prompted the game’s director and producer, Naoki Yoshida, to make a statement addressing their concerns. He admitted that the team didn’t think that the new graphics for the Sage and Reaper roles were “particularly big reveals” but were told very much otherwise by feedback received by global players, who informed the team that the icon made them feel “uncomfortable or fearful.”
“Considering also the fact that job icons are prominently visible in the game, and that they also appear on merchandise, we've made the decision to redesign the sage icon,” he stated.
The new design is “unchanged” and retains the original four nouliths, but the three now have been filled in, removing the cluster. “Now, comparisons will inevitably be made, and some of you may prefer the original,” Yoshida said. “But we believe that designs like this are things that grow on you as you play the job, and ask for your understanding as we head into Endwalker.”
The Sage job icon has been changed from the odd looking one to something more dynamic.#FFXIV https://t.co/u5wpaiYOXd pic.twitter.com/RjH7fgWUy2
— JonRON2000 (@JonRON2000) July 30, 2021
[via Eurogamer, image via Square Enix]
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