Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy XIV‘s Endwalker expansion will now release on December 7th instead of November 23rd in order to further improve its quality. Early access will begin on December 3rd.
It’s not much of a delay, but producer and director Naoki Yoshida penned a lengthy apologetic letter to fans in which he took blame for the delay. According to him, his “selfishness” has a role to play.
Part of Yoshida’s letter reads:
As I have mentioned previously in interviews and during live streams, Endwalker will be the largest expansion pack in the history of Final Fantasy XIV. It has been a huge undertaking, but we proceeded with development following plans that would allow us to make it in time for the originally scheduled release date, although admittedly everything would be down right to the wire.
However, as we neared the end of development and I played through everything—from quests to battle content and the like—I just couldn’t contain my desire to further improve Endwalker‘s quality, specifically because this expansion pack marks the first major culmination of events in Final Fantasy XIV so far. Even as we look beyond Endwalker, the Final Fantasy XIV story will continue for a long time and we hope to deliver many more enjoyable experiences in the game. However, it was precisely because Endwalker concludes the first major saga that I felt our team needed to push ourselves to the limits that I envisioned.
Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.01 will release on December 21 and patch 6.05 will release on January 4, 2022.
[Source: Square Enix]
