Final Fantasy 14 to finally streamline A Realm Reborn with upcoming patch
Square Enix has announced that major changes will be coming to Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn in a future patch, finally streamlining early parts of the MMORPG.
The big changes were announced and detailed in today’s live letter featuring the game’s developers, who have been teasing the A Realm Reborn revamp for a number of months now.
Large portions of A Realm Reborn have grown infamous due to their sluggish pacing and lack of engaging content, largely due to its initial development schedule lacking time and resources. Now, Square Enix aims to change it for the better.
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? Updates to A Realm Reborn ?#FFXIV Patch 5.3 includes an updated, more streamlined version of A Realm Reborn's main scenario quests as well as the much-awaited introduction of flying in ARR maps! ?
Watch Live ? https://t.co/9CZAvylBgc pic.twitter.com/0Ox5NI2neO
— FINAL FANTASY XIV (@FF_XIV_EN) April 24, 2020
Changes will be implemented from Patches 2.0 through to 2.5, eliminating parts of the questline seen as tedious while providing players a more engaging variety of quests at a more frequent pace. Game Director Naoki Yoshida expanded on this in an interview with Trusted Reviews back in 2019:
“Between patches 2.1 and 2.3 there are so many side quests required for MSQ [main quest] that it makes players exhausted. Even if you cleared it, it’s still a long way to 2.5, so people might be discouraged and end up lapsing out.”
“At Level 20 you fight Ifrit, and then there’s almost nothing until Titan at Level 32. In the original scenario we planned to have a Ramuh encounter in-between them, but simply didn’t have the resources. With changes to A Realm Reborn we want to cut this down little by little to make it feel more streamlined.”
Flying mounts will also be introduced in later parts of A Realm Reborn, making the act of navigating and returning to these environments far more appealing to veteran players. Since walking around the place is a bit of a tedious nightmare if we’re being honest.
Patch 5.3 was recently delayed due to Covid-19 and the additional development time required now Square Enix are all working from home. A specific release date remains unconfirmed, although Yoshida-san and company has said they will keep the game’s audience updated.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
