Final Fantasy 14 Patches Delayed Because Of Coronavirus

Because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and extended social distancing mandates, the Final Fantasy XIV team has confirmed that patch development on the game will be delayed by up to a month.

Game director Naoki Yoshida outlined how the coronavirus is impacting FFXIV development in a blog post, where he said that the next update will arrive later than expected. While Patch 5.2 launched in February 2020, it looks like the next one scheduled for mid-June could drop two to three weeks late or more.

"FFXIV relies heavily on our development and QA partners across the world, and at this point, we must accept that the situation will significantly impact our development schedule," Yoshida wrote. "[W]e are at this time undecided as to whether it will be feasible to limit the delay to two or three weeks, or if it will be closer to a month. We are terribly sorry for the disappointment this may cause our players, as we know you look forward to new patches.

"However, it is also important to prioritize the physical and mental health of our development team, without whom we would never be able to release the quality updates and features you expect from FFXIV, so we ask for your understanding as we adjust our schedule in accordance with the situation."

Yoshida provided four clear reasons why FFXIV patch development will be interrupted by the coronavirus:

1. Delayed delivery of graphical assets due to the lockdown of cities in East Asia, North America, and Europe.
2. Delayed voice recording due to the lockdown of cities in Europe.
3. Delays to development tasks performed by Tokyo staff due to work-from-home/shelter-in-place limitations.
4. Production and QA teams operating well below normal capacity due to work-from-home/shelter-in-place limitations.

He also said that while patch development will be delayed for the above reasons, FFXIV's servers will remain operational. Because of social distancing mandates, though, the support desk will have to maintain servers at home. This may cause replies from the support desk to slow down, but Yoshida assured that "each World will be running as usual, allowing everyone to continue playing."

In other Final Fantasy news, Square Enix announced a housing freeze in FFXIV. Because of how the coronavirus is affecting everyone, the studio isn't punishing players who can't pay their in-game mortgage. Square has "temporarily suspend automatic housing demolition" while the pandemic is still going on.