Details and Reveals From FFXIV’s Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXV

The Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXV (65, WOW) aired during Final Fantasy XIV’s  7th 14-hour long broadcast on July 9th, and brought a few new pieces of info with it. This letter was slightly different from previous versions as the first half discussed upcoming content while the latter saw Nier Developer Yoko Taro join in to answer some burning questions on his crossover. The Letter primarily focused on providing more details for the game’s upcoming Endwalker expansion such as the official Endwalker Benchmark, New Artifact Armor, and what the heck is happening to our belts! While the official digest usually releases a few days after the event, we wanted to give a quick rundown of what we were able to capture while the show was live. Note that the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXV was broadcast entirely in Japanese with no translator, so most of the below info was pulled from the slides and videos.

Official Endwalker PC Benchmark

• Official Endwalker Benchmark was revealed and had plenty of particle effects and flair sure to break some PCs ahead of the new launch
• Includes a character creator like the previous expansion benchmarks. Will include the male Viera
• Planned for release on July 11th, 2021 @ 12 AM PDT

Endwalker Content Recap

• The content they showed in the previous Live letter was shown and briefly recapped
• New cinematic main story quests
• New Cities including Old Sharlyan will be added
• New areas that will be massive in scale similar to previous expansions
• New jobs Sage and Reaper
• New 4 man dungeons
• Pandaemonium (high-end 8 man raid)
• Myths of the Realm (Alliance raid)
• New Beast tribes including the Arkasodara (Elephant guys) and the Loporrits (Cute chibi bunny)
• New threats in the form of the Magus Sisters and Anima
• New gear and crafting recipes
• New small-scale PVP mode
• New Residential District: Ishgard
• Gold Saucer Updates
• Island Sanctuary
• Oceania Datacenter
• Data Center Travel System

New Artifact Armor on the Way

• New job-specific armor  sets were was shown for most of the current jobs available
• Some callbacks in the designs to previous Artifact gear with Black Mage sporting its familiar black eye cover hat combo again

Downscaled Values in Battle Calculations

• A reminder of the change coming with downscaled values in battle calculations downscaling. The battle calculation adjustment will make the numbers smaller but the effectiveness will remain at the same level. So if you capped out currently on gear and fight the same monster after the adjustment, you will still deal the same percentage of damage, your numbers will just show smaller values. Purely an aesthetic change.
• Yoshi P confirmed the above further in a quick Q and A to this effect
• Undersized parties apparently will be partially impacted by the gear number changes so a small buff will be added to compensate

Belt Removal Explained

• As of 6.0 (the launch of Endwalker), belts will no longer be equipable by players or available in shops or through crafting
• Any belts already in your inventory will stay
• Any belts you have equipped, in your armory chest, or on your retainer will be given to the Calamity Salvager when 6.0 goes live
• You can retrieve your belts from the Calamity Salvager but will not be able to extract materia from them. You can sell them to vendors or desynth them however
• With belt removal, the space it took within your armory chest will be reallocated to the other equipment slots. Fifteen slots will be added to main weapons and rings as the only specification at this time for where the extra space will be added

Tentative Content Schedule For the Rest of 2021

• July 16th – Make it Rain Event begins
• July 20th – Patch 5.58 brings misc updates and Feast Season 20
• August 13th – Moonfire Faire Event begins
• August 27th – the rising
• September 13th – FFXV collaboration returns with seasonal event replay. Event quests can be reset allowing them to be replayed but all access to shops and certain items will also be reset. So if you do it, you’ll want to finish it before it leaves or you’ll not get access to the shop or items again.
• October 19th – Moogle Treasure Trove Returns
• November 19th – Endwalker Early Access begins for those who pre-ordered
• November 23rd – Endwalker launches
• November 30th – All Saints’ Wake event begins
• December 15th –  Starlight Celebration Event begins
• January 1st, 2022 –  Heavensturn Event begins

The Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXV didn’t give out a whole lot of info which was a bit disappointing but with Endwalker just four months away, the developer definitely seems to be saving the best for later on. As mentioned, the letter continued with Yoko Taro (his head at least) appearing and speaking with Yoshi-P and the development team regarding the Yohra Dark Apocalypse crossover raid they worked on together.

FFXIV Endwalker will kick off on PS4, PS5, and PC on November 23rd, 2021. Preorders are live now with early access coming November 19th.