Final Fantasy XIV’s upcoming new features cater to casuals and hardcore alike

Final Fantasy XIV continues to go from strength to strength, even with its original “main story” having been wrapped up by the Endwalker expansion. Today, producer Naoki Yoshida and friends introduced what players can look forward to in the upcoming 6.2 update to the game — and there’s a lot to look forward to, whether you’re at the cutting edge of raiding or a more casual player.

I won’t go through absolutely every announcement that was made today because you can just check the official sources for that — but there are a few things I want to particularly highlight from the Live Letter, because they sound like a whole lot of fun.

Island Sanctuary

We’ve known that this was coming for a while, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen it in action. Island Sanctuary is described as an “easy living” part of the game, and is not tied to progression elsewhere in the game. It sees you taking possession of your own island and developing it in various ways.

Since Island Sanctuary is primarily a solo activity, mount speeds are increased, and the recast time on the Sprint ability and the Return spell are reduced, making it much easier to get around without limitations. To avoid you having to clutter up your hotbars with these abilities, both Sprint and Return are set as “Duty Actions” for easy access.

The Island Sanctuary allows you to gather materials to use on various projects, but you don’t need to have levelled a gathering class to do so. Rather, Island Sanctuary has its own completely independent gathering log and materials pouch, and you’ll gain “Island EXP” instead of regular levels. There are also Island Sanctuary-specific objectives to complete to help guide you.

You can also craft in Island Sanctuary, and again, you don’t need to have levelled any crafters in the main game. Crafting is instantaneous through using ingredients rather than the complex (but mostly “solved”) ability-based system used in the main game. Crafting allows you to build useful items as well as components for larger building projects. Some buildings will go up the moment you select them, while others will take time to construct.

Naturally, the main attraction for participating in Island Sanctuary for many players will be the exclusive rewards on offer. As with most “unique” content in Final Fantasy XIV, Island Sanctuary features its own specific currency that can be exchanged for various rewards, including outfits.

Farming features prominently in Island Sanctuary, as you might expect, with the opportunity to both tend crops and raise animals. Animals can be captured in the wild and kept in your pasture, where they will produce various items for you if you take good care of them. And yes, you can name them! You can also leave up to 40 of your minions to freely roam the island, too, helping to bring a bit of extra “life” to the area.

Sounds like fun! Whether it’ll resonate with people in the same way as stuff like Animal Crossing remains to be seen, but it’s definitely not a terrible idea for some solo, casual-friendly content like this to appear in Final Fantasy XIV.

Variant Dungeons

For those who have reached level 90, Variant Dungeons are a new activity intended for casual play with 1-4 players. Like the two Deep Dungeon challenges already in the game, it looks as if you can either be matched into a 4-player party automatically, or pre-assemble your own group of 1-4 players.

Unlike most instances in Final Fantasy XIV, there are no role restrictions in Variant Dungeons, and you can freely change your jobs. There are also special “Variant Actions” available to allow players to make up for absent or unskilled roles; for example, tanks and DPS classes can get access to Cure and Raise abilities they wouldn’t normally have.

Supposedly, there’s some sort of “branching” potential during the Variant dungeon, with the narrative seemingly following the adventures of Nanamo Ul Namo. It looks as if various NPCs will tag along with your adventures, and you’ll be able to unlock parts of the story gradually.

The different routes you can take through the Variant Dungeon may contain the same enemy models, but the mechanics won’t always be the same, meaning you’ll need to pay careful attention to what is going on rather than playing on autopilot. This is very welcome news indeed!

There’s not a lot else we know about Variant Dungeons yet, but we can expect more details when the full patch notes are revealed.

Criterion Dungeons

The companion piece to Variant Dungeons, Criterion Dungeons are intended for more hardcore players and even feature a Savage difficulty mode intended for raid-tier players. Criterion Dungeons are intended for 4 players with a strict tank-healer-two DPS formation.

There are a few main factors that kick up the difficulty of Criterion Dungeons a fair amount. Firstly, normal methods of raising fallen members are prohibited; the party is instead provided with a limited number of “Variant Raise II” abilities to use.

On top of that, enemies get stronger if you take too long to clear the dungeon — and all of them will respawn if your entire party gets knocked out, meaning you’ll effectively have to start over from the top. Your main aim is to defeat enough enemies around the dungeon to spawn the boss, at which point you’ll need to take out said boss to clear the duty.

Yoshida was keen to emphasise that this is intended to be more challenging game content, meaning that the usual “big pulls” strategies people tend to use in most of Final Fantasy XIV’s dungeons probably won’t work here. Instead, you’ll need to strategically think about when to engage and when to hold back — and how you can avoid unintentional adds.

High-difficulty dungeons are something I’ve been keen to see in Final Fantasy XIV ever since it first launched; most of the “Hard Mode” dungeons in the game are anything but. Working as part of a four-player party in a dungeon scenario is very different to the more enclosed eight-player raid situation, so these Criterion Dungeons are likely to be very interesting if implemented well.

Again, though, we’re going to have to wait for more details on this.

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Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 6.2 is set to release on August 23, which is, as always, a Tuesday. Patch notes will go out just ahead of then, providing full details of all the new material in the game and the inevitable tweaks to existing content.

Probably time I got back into the fold, huh?

Find out more about Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.2 on the official mini-site.

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