Slightly unfortunate news for Final Fantasy XIV fans has arrived, as Square-Enix has announced that their latest expansion, Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, has been delayed until December 2021. The news was made on December 5th, 2021 on the official Lodestone website for FFXIV. The news starts with Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director for the game, thanking everyone for their continued love and support for the game, just before hitting everyone with the disappointing announcement.
In Naoki’s message, he states that the big update is going to be delayed for two weeks from their originally planned launch date of November 23th, 2021, to December 7th, 2021. Interestingly enough, Naoki mentions that the biggest reason for the delay was due to his selfishness, claiming that his desire to make Endwalker the best expansion it could be ended up pushing the development past its initial release window. Along with the expansion’s new release date, he also mentioned the release date for other substantial patches, as Patch 6.01 is now scheduled for Tuesday, December 21st, 2021, and Patch 6.05 is now scheduled for Tuesday, January 4th, 2022.
“It was precise because Endwalker concludes the first major saga that I felt our team needed to push ourselves to the “limits” that I envisioned.”, said Naoki in regards to the amount of quality they wanted to pack into this major expansion. “Unfortunately, the consequence of this was that we ended up in a situation where we cut into the time required for final quality assurance checks due to this time spent on additional improvements. Naoki then ends his message by stating that development is coming together very well and the two extra weeks of development will ensure that Endwalker will deliver the most immersive experience for Final Fantasy XIV yet.
It’s not very often that a game producer or director of such a high caliber would be willing to admit their shortcomings for such a major game announcement (not unless they have been publically backed into a corner, of course), but seeing Naoki admit that he has made mistakes is arguably good and refreshing to see, as it shows that he and his team are willing to own up to their faults and make changes for the better. After all, Final Fantasy XIV might not have become the game that it is today if they did not admit that its initial 1.0 release wasn’t a disaster, thus leading to the creation of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is set to release on Tuesday, December 7th, 2021, with the start of Early Access on Friday, December 3rd, 2021.
Final Fantasy XIV and its various expansions are available for PC, Mac OS, Playstation 4, and Playstation 5.
