Final Fantasy 14 team says butt sliders are now a matter of when
Koji Fox says the long-running request may have moved from “if” to “when”, while Evercold expands colour, facial and animation customisation.
Final Fantasy 14’s next expansion, Evercold, is already widening character customisation, but a joke about one especially requested feature has started sounding less like a joke. During a PAX Australia interview, Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox said the community might eventually get the much-requested ability to adjust characters’ posterior proportions — if players keep pressuring Game Director Naoki Yoshida.1
The comments came while Koji Fox and Global Community Producer Toshio Murouchi discussed Evercold with streamers SarahJane, Pezz and Kwistyy_. Koji described Yoshida’s response to the request as having moved from “if” to “when”, before joking that the Final Fantasy XIV community could wear him down after years of asking.1 That is not an announcement of butt sliders, and there is no confirmed feature or release date for them. It is, however, a revealing snapshot of how the team is thinking about the broader character-creation overhaul.
What *Evercold* is changing
Square Enix’s official Evercold site confirms that the expansion will add a wider range of colour options, more precise control over features such as eyes and lips, new options including eye shadow, and removable components on certain pieces of gear.2 The official character-customisation artwork shows a broad selection of playable characters with distinct hair, skin and facial designs, underlining the expansion’s emphasis on making avatars feel more personal.2
The upgrade is not limited to sliders. Koji Fox also discussed the team’s intention to give players more ways to make faces, housing, gear and animations feel unique. The official site lists customisable action animations among the expansion’s features, meaning players will be able to personalise aspects of how certain abilities look as well as how their characters look.2
That broader approach matters because Evercold is also changing how jobs work. The expansion will introduce Evolved Mode alongside the existing Reborn Mode, with the two systems intended to offer different takes on job identity rather than simply replacing one another. Koji Fox stressed that the team is still working through the balance, and said the damage difference between the modes should be negligible, although he was careful to note that he was speaking from localisation rather than battle-team expertise.1
A request that became a community ritual
The posterior-slider request has become a recurring bit of Final Fantasy XIV fan culture, but the interview suggests it has also become a useful shorthand for the game’s changing attitude towards roleplaying and customisation. Murouchi and Koji Fox framed the discussion around the idea that even tiny adjustments can help players make an avatar feel more like their own.
That is a more meaningful direction than the headline joke suggests. Final Fantasy XIV characters are not disposable loadouts: players spend years with the same Warrior of Light, refining its appearance, outfits, housing and emotes. Small additions can therefore matter more than a single large feature that everyone uses once. The official Evercold material’s focus on colour, facial detail and removable gear components points towards a steady expansion of that toolkit rather than one definitive redesign.2
The interview also touched on future plans for Evercold’s Evolved Mode jobs. Four — Paladin, White Mage, Bard and Dragoon — have already been shown in some form, while a dedicated Producer Live Letter is planned to explain the remaining jobs in greater depth before the expansion’s January launch window.1 Murouchi also said cross-region matchmaking is being tested, first on Japanese servers and later in North America and Europe if the team is satisfied with the results.1
Our opinion
The butt-slider line is funny because it is so specifically Final Fantasy 14, but the more important story is the philosophy underneath it. Square Enix appears to be treating customisation as an ongoing part of the game rather than a box to tick for one expansion. More colour control, facial adjustments, gear options and action animations all serve the same goal: letting a long-running avatar feel less like a fixed model and more like a player’s own character.
Whether posterior sliders ever arrive is still uncertain, and players should not mistake Koji Fox’s teasing comments for confirmation. If the feature does happen, it will be a memorable example of the community wearing down a design decision. If it does not, Evercold is still making a substantial case that personalisation in Final Fantasy 14 has room to grow.