Final Fantasy 14's next big story will be revealed later than usual

Final Fantasy XIV's Estinien hands the player a map
(Image credit: Square Enix)

Final Fantasy 14's director has hinted at the road ahead to the game's next major expansion.

Speaking to Famitsu earlier this week in a new interview, director Naoki Yoshida has dropped some tantalizing new info. As translated by GamesRadar+, the director says that we'll begin to see hints ahead as to the story of the next big expansion in Final Fantasy 14's patch 6.5.

This changes the story structure of past post-launch content. Typically, Final Fantasy 14 wraps up the story of the past major expansion in the first three patches after the expansion, so for example with Shadowbringers, patches 5.1 through to 5.3 revolved around resolving the conflict around Ardbert's body being possessed by Elidibus.

From then on, we were into uncharted territory as Final Fantasy 14 built towards Endwalker with a new story from patch 5.4 onwards. Now, though, instead of patch 6.4 giving us the start of a brand new storyline, Yoshida instead reveals we'll have to wait until patch 6.5 for hints of the next major storyline in Final Fantasy 14.

However, the director also reveals the 6.x patch storyline will feature one major climactic event. This event will apparently change the director of the game's overarching storyline considerably and will set the stage for the next major expansion's launch in patch 7.0.

Whatever Yoshida and the team at Square Enix have planned in the remainder of the 6.x patch series, it'll be game-changing for Final Fantasy 14 at large. Considering the earth-shattering events we've had before in the MMO, all bets are off for where the main plot of Final Fantasy 14 could go from here.

Don't forget: we're getting a brand new look at Final Fantasy 14's patch 6.2 in a showcase later this week

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.