Final Fantasy 14's patch 7.1 trailer teases much-needed character development for its bad dad antagonist Zoraal Ja—but a sluggish release schedule for everything else

Final Fantasy 14's next story patch has a lot riding on its shoulders—it'll sort of be the proof in the pudding as to whether Creative Studio 3 is able to respond quickly to story complaints, or whether we'll be stuck with an unfortunately plodding narrative for the next three patches. Still, I'm open to giving it a chance and, at the very least, this trailer promises not to abandon the premise just because of its clunky entry. Spoilers for Dawntrail, naturally.

As shown on the "Letter From the Producer Live" this morning, Patch 7.1, titled Crossroads, appears to be taking us back to Solution Nine to deal with the fallout of Queen Sphene's death by Wuk Lamat—not to mention, the fallout of death. With the Endless gone, the people of Solution Nine can remember their dead again, which means an entire city full of people not used to grief are going to have to wrestle with it.

Furthermore, it looks like we'll be getting a direct look into Zoraal Ja, one of two antagonists in Dawntrail, who was left severely under-developed. Playing it at the time, while I saw the whispers of his motivation through the thin film of good faith, the flavour text for the optional Extreme version of the fight painted a fuller picture of his narrative arc than the main story did. Which, uh, is bad.

Still—better late than never, as they say. My main issue with Dawntrail is that it never allowed its most interesting plot points room to breathe, and if the patch quests are aimed at fixing that, then I'll be along for the ride with an open heart.

Otherwise, there weren't any major reveals—Final Fantasy 11 fans are getting a huge nostalgia trip with the Echoes of Vana'diel raid, where lizard heartthrob Bakool Ja Ja will be playing a supporting role. As someone completely green to that world, I'm genuinely excited to find out more about it, and given the quality of the battle content so far I'm sure we're in for a banger of an alliance raid series.

The thing that worries me, though, is that despite a general annoyance with much of the game's content coming out at a slow tick, a lot of Patch 7.1's meat will actually be coming out in Patch 7.15, instead, which (assuming patterns hold) should be arriving around two months afterwards.

The new custom deliveries, the new role quests, the new crafting quests, the new Hildibrand quests, and the 24-man savage alliance raid will all be coming in patch 7.15 or later—leaving us with the new MSQ stuff, the Alliance Raid, the new Extreme, and the Pelupelu allied society quests to keep us busy until January. Ah well, at least the fight against FF11 mainstay Prishe looks cool.

I dunno—I'm excited to play through what's on offer, but I'm left scratching my head as to why we're once more prioritising the Ultimate (a piece of content so hard even dedicated raiders aren't guaranteed to try it) over stuff that'll keep midcore and casual players enthused after they've already endured a sluggish four months with nothing to chew on. That'll make six to seven months since the launch before they're even given a sliver of something to do, and a lot of it's one-and-done quest lines anyway. I wasn't expecting the problems I outlined last week to be solved right away, but it's also not great to feel proven right again. Still, here's hoping we're at the start of a slow uphill climb.