Final Fantasy XIV Teases Community Crafting And FF9 Throwbacks In Upcoming Patch

As Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail gears up for its next major patch, developer Square Enix showed us some of what we can expect, from a new activity for crafters, to a throwback to another older game. Director Naoki Yoshida revealed in the game’s latest announcement that patch 7.2 will be titled Seekers of Eternity, going live in late March. Fans are also getting a huge twist on the game’s usual Job format, and a dungeon inspired by Final Fantasy IX.

Before diving into Seekers of Eternity’s new content, Yoshida first addressed the use of PlayerScope, a mod that reads other players’ account IDs, which allows users to find other players’ alternate characters, enabling in-game stalking. Yoshida assured fans that the mod does not reveal any sensitive information like passwords, but that Square Enix is taking steps to stop the mod’s use.

As for what’s new in the patch, Seekers of Eternity adds the most anticipated crafting feature in quite some time. Cosmic Exploration is a new activity where crafting and gathering classes essentially terraform new planets as a community. New planets will be added in each subsequent major patch, each one offering quests based on crafting and gathering. By working together, FFXIV players will develop these new planets by building bases on them.

From the sound of it, Cosmic Exploration will be something of a mix of Shadowbringers’ Ishgardian Restoration, which saw players constructing a new housing district together, and the new Island Sanctuary, which lets players farm and develop their own private island. Given that World of Warcraft just announced its own, seemingly more community-focused version of player housing, this more social crafting activity could help players from feeling like they’re missing out on working together by sticking with FFXIV.

The new Occult Crescent activity also calls back to older content, this time building on FFXIV’s Bozja and Eureka Field Operations. Occult Crescent is a new region where large groups of players need to band together to defeat roaming bosses, collecting unique gear along the way. Players will need to be level 100 to enter the Occult Crescent, which offers a brand-new twist on the game’s existing Job system.

While in the Occult Crescent, players can use Phantom Jobs, a new feature that allows the use of actions from different Jobs. You can either choose new abilities to enhance your existing strengths or branch into new powers, like adding support abilities to a damage-dealing class. In addition to borrowing abilities from existing Jobs, players will be able to use skills from Jobs that don’t appear in FFXIV. Berserker, Chemist, Cannoneer, Geomancer, Ranger, and Time Mage are among the new Jobs lending their skills, many of which players have asked to be added to the game in full, but which Yoshida says don’t fit the game as full Jobs.

FFXIV Patch 7.2 also brings with it a new dungeon that will look familiar to fans of Final Fantasy IX. Dubbed Underkeep, the patch’s new dungeon is set in Alexandria Castle. The Dawntrail expansion already includes plenty of callbacks to Final Fantasy IX, and Underkeep continues that, taking place in a central location from the game. Parts of the Underkeep version of Alexandria Castle are directly modeled after its appearance in FFIX. It’s accompanied by a Trial called Recollection, which sees players squaring off against a giant robot with a striking resemblance to FFIX’s Beatrix.

Square Enix will be sharing more details on Seekers of Eternity in another Live Letter some time before it launches. Before that, a smaller update, Patch 7.18 is set to launch on February 25, bringing a host of smaller fixes and tweaks in anticipation of the larger changes to come.