FINAL FANTASY XIV Online News

FFXIV 6.1 release date confirmed in Live Letter 70

As part of today's Live Letter 70, Final Fantasy XIV producer Yoshi-P confirmed that the MMORPG's first major content update for Endwalker, which was initially detailed during the previous Live Letter, will be arriving on April 12. This patch adds new main scenario quests, sidequests, and role quests, alongside a number of other updates to housing, job balance, and more.

Following on from the climactic events of Endwalker's main story, 6.1's story quests will see the Warrior of Light and their friends set out looking for new adventures. This will include new role quests and the beginnings of the Tataru's Grand Endeavour series, which focuses on everyone's favourite Lalafellin receptionist. You'll have to wait until patch 6.15 to reconvene with the gentleman inspector Hildibrand Manderville and undertake Tribal Quests for the Arkasodara, however.

We'll also be seeing a rollout of some more endgame content, including the new Myths of the Realm alliance raid, and more challenging versions of trials such as The Minstrel's Ballad: Endsinger's Aria and Ultima's Bane (Unreal) to test out the more hardcore members of the player base.

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Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXIX Digest Released

We’re pleased to announce that the Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXIX event digest has been released!

If you weren’t able to watch the live stream, or if you just want to watch it again, be sure to check it out!

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New FFXIV alliance raid will be a standalone story

The new FFXIV alliance raid will be a standalone story, not unlike the previous Return to Ivalice raid. Final Fantasy XIV director Yoshi-P has given interviews to Famitsu, Game Watch, and 4gamer ahead of the upcoming Live Letter 70 on Friday, April 1. With the MMORPG's recent Endwalker expansion bringing closure to several long-running story threads, Yoshida emphasises that he wanted patch 6.1, set to release in mid-April, to show players that new challenges still await them in Eorzea.

In particular, Yoshida addresses the upcoming 24-man Myths of the Realm alliance raid, which he compares to Stormblood's Return to Ivalice content. He says that during his playtesting he felt that the content was "quite difficult" but remarks that feedback from players suggested a higher challenge would be preferential to content being too easy, at least during the weeks after release.

Regarding the Myths of the Realm story, Yoshida says (as translated by aitaikimochi on Twitter) that it will be an entirely original, standalone narrative for FFXIV, with no guest directors being featured (in contrast to Return To Ivalice's Yasumi Matsuno and YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse's Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito, who contributed to development of the cross-promotional alliance raids in Stormblood and Shadowbringers respectively).

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FFXIV data center travel detailed, but still no cross-region

FFXIV is getting data center travel as of patch 6.18. The developers have again confirmed this as part of a new explainer breaking down the implementation of the feature - however, as previously announced, there will be no cross-region travel in this initial launch, and it's still up in the air whether cross-region play will be implemented at all.

FFXIV is divided into two types of data centers, as explained in the new blog post. There are four physical data centers, each divided by region: Japan, North America, Europe, and Oceania. Within those physical data centers are logical data centers - in North America, for example, those are Aether, Primal, and Crystal. In Europe, they're Chaos and Light. Each of those logical data centers are then divided into 'worlds', or 'servers' in the more common MMO parlance.

Data center travel will only allow you travel between logical data centers, not physical ones - meaning that you cannot travel between regions in the 6.18 implementation. As director Naoki Yoshida said in a blog post earlier this year, this is "due in part to differences in game economy and values. We'll be paying keen attention to the opinions of players as we consider whether or not to introduce cross-region travel in the future."

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Final FFXIV 6.1 Live Letter confirmed for April's worst day

FFXIV Live Letter 70 has been confirmed for April, and it will provide what's likely the final set of details on patch 6.1 before the update's launch next month. The timing of this Live Letter also gives us a pretty good idea of when the new patch will actually release, too.

FFXIV Live Letter 70 will air on Friday, April 1 at 4am PDT / 7am EDT / 12pm BST via YouTube and Twitch. On the official site, the devs note that this will include "part two" of the 6.1 reveal, as well as info on "miscellaneous updates". As with other Live Letters focused on smaller patches, there will be no live English translation. However, on-screen slides detailing major features will be translated, and the unofficial FFXIV Discord usually provides additional fan translations.

With the Live Letter set for April 1, fans are already bracing themselves for all sorts of fake announcements to kick off the show - though the broadcast will mostly be made up of real info. (Probably.) The date means it's likely that patch 6.1 will launch on Tuesday, April 12, since updates almost always launch 11 days following the last Live Letter promoting them. Either way, you can expect the date to be confirmed as part of the broadcast.

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