No one is immune from the clutches of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, not even Gabe Newell himself. He played it a lot on his Steam deck because one of his sons wanted a minion healer. In a video interview with IGN, Newell said he’s spent “quite a bit” of time with the upcoming handheld, with most of his time spent with Square Enix’s fantasy MMO. It turns out he’s one of the many refugees from WoW who found their way into the game last year, boosting concurrent players to an all-time high. “Now I’m playing Final Fantasy,” he said. “One of my sons got into Final Fantasy. I kind of burned out on World of Warcraft – I got to the point where they introduced a new level cap and I’d be like, “Ah!” and then I started playing for 10 minutes, and my brain melted. So I played MMOs for a while.”
It turns out his son is a tanker and wanted Newell to heal him during raids. “One of my sons was into Final Fantasy, and he was angry at the people he raided with. So he’s like, “Okay, I need a minion. Dad, come, be my minion. Be the healer that doesn’t let me die while tanking.” So I started playing with him and then played a lot of decks.”
Gabe Newell, billionaire founder and owner of Valve and Steam (and Steam Deck), says he plays #FFXIV a lot on deck because his son, Tank, wants a healing “minion” for raids. 😭@IGN video source: pic.twitter.com/723Rg79I5o February 26, 2022
I desperately want to know more – what healer class does he manage? What does his character look like? Is he a dirty cutscene skipper or did he enjoy the story? I can picture Newell as the Chief Scientist though if he was a DPS he would definitely be a Ninja if his impressive collection of knives is there anything to get through. I also refuse to believe that a man revolves around anyone other than a stupid cat girl. He may be an au’ra woman, but I couldn’t imagine Newell choosing a simple masculine hyur or a graceful lalafell.
Another plus to all of this is knowing that Final Fantasy 14 can run on a Steam deck, and I’m guessing it works relatively well. It has a pretty big advantage in that it’s an MMO already made for consoles – the crossover Hotbar is a really fantastic innovation and it means it can all work really well in a portable format. I was wondering if I should hold onto the Steam Deck pre-order, but being able to carry Final Fantasy 14 with me could very well be the reason I end up making the purchase.
