Final Fantasy 14's new typing minigame is already causing chaos as players struggle against bots and impossible words: "It just came out"

On the road to new expansion Evercold, Square Enix has introduced a new minigame to Final Fantasy 14 in its ever-beloved virtual casino, the Gold Saucer – a typing battle that's already spurring all the chaos.

Keyboard Brawler, which is set to depart the Gold Saucer's lineup of silly little minigames as Evercold releases this January, is pretty simple. You progress through waves, in other words, "battles," by typing specific words that pop up to attack enemies.

Speed and accuracy are key (pardon the pun) here, as they are in most typing games, but folks are having to grapple with more than just their own hands, it would appear.

First, there are the impossible words – yes, I mean literally impossible if you've got a US or UK English keyboard, as there are words from languages like German that contain diacritical marks like the umlaut (impossible unless you use key commands to access them, of course, but that's not exactly convenient or realistic in the midst of a high-speed typing battle).

One player's screenshot on Reddit highlights the debacle.

It shows the word "doppelgänger," umlaut and all, with the bewildered poster asking, "What am I supposed to do about that?"

Over on X, others can be seen encountering the same word (and others with diacritical markers), too: "Who thought putting 'doppelgänger' in Keyboard Brawler was a good idea like what the hell?" What the hell, indeed, anon. What the hell, indeed. It'd be one thing if the impossible words were alone in setting fans back…

But, they're not. There's also, sadly, the issue of bots, cheaters, and plugins. As one thread highlights, the whole cheating problem has come on fast – Keyboard Brawler only came out a couple of days ago, after all.

"Who the hell is botting Keyboard Brawler lmao it just came out," the poster writes, baffled. "Or maybe they're just a really good touchtypist idk." Attached is a video of… well, yeah, probably, bots playing the minigame.

A quick look at all Keyboard Brawler discussions on social media shows this isn't an isolated case, either. Players are complaining about cheaters left, right, and center, unfortunately, but I suppose it's something I've come to expect as a hardened fan of the MMO myself.

Heck, how many people actually play the Slice is Right legitimately anymore with the, uh, plugin that I shall not be naming here…? Some Warriors of Light aren't new to cheating, to say the least.

Will Square Enix change anything about its limited-time Gold Saucer event, though? Perhaps, and I do hope they at least axe some of the words that English speakers genuinely can't type on native keyboards – fingers crossed.

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