Games are beingdelayed big time in 2020 due to the coronavirusoutbreak and its many ramifications. One of the many that has suffered some time loss due to COVID-19 is the expansion forFinal Fantasy 14, which was original due to launch this month, but it now finally has a release date.
Final Fantasy 14was originally released in September 2010 and has seen not only a massive rewrite of the whole universe, but a number of well-received expansions as well. With big in-game events like theBreaking Brick Mountains crossover eventgoing on this week,Final Fantasy 14is bigger than its ever been, even with the massive delays with the release of the expansion.
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Reflections in Crystal, the newest expansion forXIV,has a release date of August 11th, and will be the beginning of the return to a regular release schedule, according to producer and director Naoki Yoshida. While players have known since April thatPatch 5.3 was going to be delayed, no one has had a solid date for its release until now. In a letter posted on the Square Blog, Yoshida apologized for the delay of Patch 5.3Reflections of Crystaland thanked fans for their patience.
“We did everything we could to try and release this update at some point in mid-July, but in the end, we determined more time was needed to thoroughly test and debug the next alliance raid of YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse and the new large-scale encounters of the resistance weapons content. This matter was complicated by the fact that, due to the size of our QA teams, and the nature of the testing required of them, working in the office could not be avoided. Preparing a working environment in the office that adhered to social distancing guidelines and regulations required more time, resulting in this two-month delay.”
The letter continued on to say that as of now, the team is planning on releasing upcoming patches, expansions, and events on their pre-coronavirus schedule. While many fans are disappointed that the release schedule will now be off by two months for the remainder of the series, Yoshida wrote that an accelerated release schedule would result in cut content and “sacrificing the quality of our work,” which is not something the team is willing to do. Perhaps that means all theother classesFF14players have been hoping forstill have a chance in upcoming patches. Yoshida also included this picture, for “a glimpse of what we’re working on…”
For a game marked by amazing costumes,beautiful dungeonsand raids, and a massive fan-base, it’s great to see that the team cares a lot about the look and feel of the game and aren’t willing to sacrifice the content they want to bring for a better release schedule.
Final Fantasy 14is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and PlayStation 3.
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