What The FFXV Delay Means for FFXIV

Over the weekend, speculation roamed around online about a possible Final Fantasy XV delay. After FFXV Director and Producer Hajime Tabata confirmed the news, everyone had their opinion to share. For those of us who play FFXIV, the original September 30 release date put us in a tricky situation. It’s fair to say that plenty of current FFXIV players are fans of the franchise, or at least RPG fans with a cursory interest in trying out FFXV. The new November 29 release date is good news for some of us.

1. No need to choose between FFXV and new FFXIV content.

Patch 3.4 will likely arrive sometime in September. This was the biggest issue. We weren’t sure whether we would have enough time to focus on the new content Patch 3.4 will bring. For hardcore raiders, the third and final Alexander raid tier will be released with this patch. Some raiders would have had a difficult time balancing raid schedules with playing FFXV. For everyone else, the new gear, dungeons, PvP updates, quests, and quality of life improvements will keep them busy. We won’t have to choose between soaking up all the new content in the next patch and sneaking in some FFXV time.

I would have prioritized FFXV over capping weekly tokens in FFXIV. Or I would have taken a break from FFXIV at the worst time. The night right before a major patch is a lot of fun. Reading the patch notes and going through threads on r/ffxiv and the official forums is a ritual for me. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on that for another game.

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2. NA Fan Fest in October gets to stay in the spotlight.

This year’s NA Fan Fest in Las Vegas would have had to compete for attention with FFXV. Set two weeks after the original September 30 release date, the dates clashed somewhat. For those who wanted to take their time with FFXV, they might not have wanted to join the living in order to watch the livestream of the event. For those heading to Vegas directly, they would have been disappointed at having to set FFXV aside. Physically attending Fan Fest is an exciting opportunity. But I’m sure there would have been some in the crowd sighing over lost playtime in their single-player campaigns.

I would have opted out of watching the livestream in favor of playing FFXIV. Reddit and other outlets are great about recapping important events for anyone who might have missed them. I would have been perfectly fine checking out a few threads once I was ready to return to the FFXIV expansion hype.

The JP Fan Fest in happens right at Christmas (December 24-26). That probably gives us enough time to spend exclusively with FFXIV until the next round of announcements in Tokyo.

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3. The content drought after 3.4 will be rough.

We’re in a drought right now. Patch 3.35 last month gave us the Palace of the Dead. We’ve exhausted the dungeon already. Once the excitement from the NA Fan Fest wears off, that’ll be around the time when we start running out of things to do in the game. The lull will settle in by November. We’ll have to wait until the end of the month for FFXV.

While there are a lot of new games coming out over the next few months, not everyone can afford to play all of them right at release. For those who don’t have the luxury of buying every new title, they have to prioritize one or two games over the rest. For FFXIV players, FFXV is likely at the top of their list.

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I’m grateful that FFXIV gets frequent update patches compared to other MMOs. We only have to wait a couple of months before the devs give us an idea of what to look forward to next. It would have been nice to have FFXV sooner. But there are other games I’m looking forward to within the next couple of months, like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. I’ll have plenty of time to play through those while waiting for FFXIV updates and FFXV.

Overall, the delay is a good thing. I have too many games to choose from in September and October, FFXIV included. The usual AAA line-up in November doesn’t interest me. That’s the perfect time for FFXV to release in a polished state. It’ll be hard to avoid spoilers until then, like the 50-minute gameplay video Square-Enix just released. I’m positive that the wait will be worth it. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to what the FFXIV devs have for us in Patch 3.4 and at Fan Fest.