Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Gets New Trailer, Release Delayed Two Weeks

Final Fantasy XIV’s 24 million registered players weave a tale of hard-fought success considering the original game’s shaky release before the reupholstered A Realm Reborn launch. Eorzea expanded to include Shadowbringers and Stormblood. These expansions added new features, character jobs and enhanced the central story. Endwalker will be the next major expansion. The pandemic affected the fourth expansion’s production, and now producer and director Naoki Yoshida has announced a short two-week delay alongside a new Endwalker launch trailer (seen below). 

In a Square Enix press release, Yoshida apologized profusely for the last-minute delay (Endwalker was initially slated to release on November 23), stating that the team needs a bit more time to optimize the MMO’s stability. You can read a small excerpt of Yoshida’s statement below.

“We will of course deliver a new adventure in FFXIV to follow on from Endwalker but, with the various struggles we experienced from the failure of the original FFXIV leading up to where we are now, I just couldn’t contain my desire to perfect Endwalker to the best of my ability. Because we had spent more time improving quality than expected, we used the remaining time for debugging. To preserve the debugging time that will arise during development, however, stability is critical for online games. I therefore postponed the release date for the expansion pack by two weeks.

Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker will bring a slew new features including new role quests to heal, tank, melee, magic, ranged, DPS, DPS, Reaper and Sage classes. New raids are available with normal and savage difficulty settings. Another treasure hunt dungeon is also included. The housing area has larger purchasable plots. 5v5 PVP includes ranked seasons. Small-scale quality improvements can be made, such as UI tweaks. 

Our resident MMO-expert Dan Tack played Endwalker and loved his time with it, stating, “Obviously, a couple of hours with an MMORPG is a drop in the bucket. But everything I saw in Endwalker speaks to the greater game and its continued path of progression, where they’ve upped the quality of the title with each expansion. Endwalker is the final chapter of this story, so I’m expecting a lot. And everything I’ve seen so far thinks that we’ll get it.”

Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker will release now on December 7. Early access begins on December 3.