Last night’s big event on Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker had a surprise for fans: The Endwalker expansion has been delayed by two weeks, from November 23rd to December 7th, 2021. Game Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida explained that an overemphasis on the quality of gameplay and story lead to the game release build being unstable, something he took responsibility for and called “selfishness” on his own part.
“As we neared the end of development and I played through everything—from quests to battle content and the like—I just couldn’t contain my desire to further improve Endwalker’s quality, specifically because this expansion pack marks the first major culmination of events in FFXIV so far,” said Yoshida in a blog post.
“Unfortunately, the consequence of this was that we ended up in a situation where we cut into the time required for final quality assurance checks due to this time spent on additional improvements,” he continued. That lead to a compromise on the game’s stability: “As such, I humbly ask you all to forgive me for the decision I’ve made,” said Yoshida.
Yoshida also called out those players who had done things like taken off work to play the game as deserving a special apology.
You can read Yoshida’s full reasons for delaying the release of Endwalker in a post on the Final Fantasy 14 blog.