Square Enix continues to expand the MMO world of Final Fantasy XIV, but it has now said it would be open to a single-player spin-off, too. Speaking in an interview with PCGamesN, longtime Final Fantasy producer and director Naoki Yoshida says the developer would “more than welcome” such a project – but it wouldn’t have time to do it by itself.

“At the moment the dev team doesn’t have enough time to create any spin-offs or anything, so as long as someone [else] wants to take this challenge, we would more than welcome them to do that,” Yoshida says. “As long as some other teams in Square Enix, or anyone, wants to do it, then the FF14 dev team would not say no. The current FF14 side just [has] too much happening right now – the major new expansion, it’s already our limit.

“If [I told the developers in] Japan, the team would say to [me], ‘Are you insane? Are you crazy?’ Another way to do it is to extend the expansion for another two years, so release it in four years, so we can have more time … but if someone can take this then they’re more than welcome.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Yoshida says future expansions could, potentially, take players to new worlds within Final Fantasy XIV – the producer directly cites Midgar as a possibility for future shard settings.

The game recently got a new Final Fantasy-Nier crossover raid, as well as a new update that lets you ride in a gorilla’s palm. You might also be interested in our list of the best MMOs on PC, if you want more games like FF14.

Additional reporting from Laurence Phillips.