Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.2 Buried Memory Launching Late August

Square Enix held a new Letter from the Producer Live for MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, during which it announced that the next major update will release in late August 2022. The Patch 6.2 update, titled “Buried Memory”, will include new main scenario quest content continuing the game’s new post-Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker story.

The presentation, once again hosted by director and producer Naoki Yoshida with community manager Toshio Murouchi, went into other details about the patch and some forthcoming subsequent updates. It will also continue the Tataru’s Grand Endeavor sidequest series, though players will first need to complete the Shadow of Mhach quest/raid series that were introduced in the Heavensward expansion.

Patch 6.25 will continue the Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures quest series. These quests will unlock a new set of weapon enhancement quests, giving players access to the legendary Manderville weapons, with further updates to be added in later patches. The progression on these weapons is stated to be quest-based. Patch 6.25 will also add new gathering Tribal Quests for the Omicrons.

Buried Memory will include a new dungeon — the Fell Court of Troia — as well as a Trial including an Extreme version, though the name and boss of the Trial were not revealed. It will also include the next part in the Pandæmonium raid series — Pandæmonium: Abyssos — with its Savage version set to be released one week after as a test run following requests from the community. Other additions include a new Unreal Trial — Containment Bay S1T7 — as well as adding Duty Support to the main scenario dungeons from A Realm Reborn’s Snowcloak to Heavensward’s The Vault. There will also be some PvE and PvP job adjustments, although planned extensive adjustments to Dragoon and Astrologian have been postponed, and some changes to previous Main Scenario Quest content. Heavensward’s The Steps of Faith is now a solo quest battle, while the Thornmarch Trial has been revamped.

Patch 6.25 will introduce new Variant Dungeons. Initially teased as “Criterion Dungeons”, these are variable-difficulty dungeons designed for casual party for one-to-four level 90 players. There are no role restrictions and players can change jobs during the dungeon. Enemy strength is determined by the party size — matched parties will contain four members — while progression route branches based on player actions. The first Variant Dungeon is called the Sil’dihn Suberrane and sees players exploring its depths alongside a particular characters. The progression path will change the story, with players able to experience all possible stories through multiple playthroughs.

The Criterion Dungeon name will still be used for more challenging versions of Variant Dungeons. These high-difficulty dungeons are designed for four-person parties consisting of a tank, a healer, and two DPS jobs. They are visually similar to the equivalent Variant Dungeon but have a pre-determined path and do not include NPC companions. They will also come with even further challenging Savage version. In addition, normal resurrection methods are not available in Criterion Dungeons; each player is given a limited number of special revival actions in the normal Another version, but all resurrection methods are prohibited in Savage with all enemies also revived after a party KO and becoming stronger after a certain period of time.

The second half of the presentation introduced the new Island Sanctuary. This offers new casual solo content as players build up their own personal island sanctuary: gathering materials, caring for creatures, building facilities, crafting items, etc. Players do not need experience with existing gathering or crafting jobs. Materials gathered from the island take up their own inventory space and can be used to create tools that assist with further gathering. Players build up their own base of operations, customising its appearance. Players can create handicrafts that can be exported for a new island-specific currency. Players can also invite others to visit or travel to friends’ and Free Company members’ islands. Further details will be revealed in a later Letter from the Producer presentation.

Other minor changes coming in Patch 6.2 include improvements to the new character portraits system introduce in Patch 6.1. There will also be a new set of Tomestone currency for end-game gear: Allagan Tomestones of Causality, plus new high item level crafting gear and the ability to request item repair from other players both inside and outside of duties.

In more imminent news, Square Enix announced that Patch 6.18 will release on July 5, 2022. This patch will introduce the Data Center Travel system letting players travel to other worlds within the same physical data center. It will also add a new data center, Meteor, to the Japanese data center with relevant world redistribution, as well as adding two new worlds to each of the European Chaos and Light data centers.

Full presentation (Japanese audio with English slides)