Here's the FF14 7.3 release date and everything shown in Live Letter 88

The FF14 7.3 release date is official, and it's coming in the first week of August. Game director Naoki Yoshida and community producer Toshio Murouchi are back again to show off the climactic patch for Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail. With the current expansion story set to reach its conclusion, there's a lot to look through, including the returning FF11 alliance raid and a new deep dungeon. In today's FF14 Live Letter 88, the pair walk us through an in-game look at everything coming in patch 7.3, including a newfound emphasis on creating something for everyone.

Before we get into the full details of the next Final Fantasy 14 update, let's start with the date, which is just as we predicted. FF14 patch 7.3 launches Tuesday August 5. "Of course you all knew," Yoshida remarks [via translation], "we should, should, be on schedule." It's an important turning point for what's long been a top contender among our best MMORPGs; 7.3 marks the end of the divisive Dawntrail story, and the shift towards Square Enix and Creative Studio 3's more long-term, overarching arc for the next decade.

The trailer gives us plenty of glimpses of what to expect - as ever, this is fairly spoiler-laden for past patches, so I'd avoid watching it if you haven't already finished the 7.2 MSQ. As was teased during the previous Live Letter, our journey is set to climax back at the Meso Terminal, which is also the name of the new story dungeon, and while we aren't given a name for the trial it appears to take place in the same area.

Yoshida notes that "the story is a bit longer, so please take enough time to enjoy it," and adds that our Warrior of Light "will be more in focus" for the finale. As for the extreme version of the trial, Murouchi teases that we can expect something "more execution leaning, less brain training," comparing it to the Valigarmanda fight. Yoshida notes that it's about 30 seconds longer on average, and confirms we'll earn two totems per clear towards the mount. Muroichi says he never cashes his in; "I just continue until I win the mount."

The remainder of the proposed Occult Crescent changes will be introduced following the recent emergency update. Entering the isle with a group of 24 players or more will now spawn a new, exclusive instance, and an auroral mirage will occur five minutes later if Forked Tower entry requirements are met. Note that you'll now need at least 24 players to use Sanguine Ciphers (up from 16), and that you will not be chosen if you don't offer any. The auroral mirage can also no longer spawn until any active critical encounters end.

From here, we get a quick rundown of everything else ahead of the actual in-game details. We've got Echoes of Vana'diel part two, San d'Oria: The Second Walk, as our alliance raid. Crystalline Conflict gets a Tuliyollal beach arena, the Bayside Battleground. Vault Oneiron is the latest treasure dungeon. Stormblood's battle against Seiryu in The Wreath of Snakes will be the unreal trial. There will also be expanded duty support for optional ARR dungeon Cutter's Cry, of which Yoshida reveals, "We made Cutter's Cry early in ARR and had ignored every regulation that we had set for designing dungeons."

7.3 will mark the first iteration of chat bubbles, a long-requested optional feature that lets you display player chat messages above their character's heads. Speaking of heads, Hrothgar and Viera are finally getting expanded support for more hats, with the option to hide Viera ears. "I read a comment, 'But if we fold them we can't hear anything any more,'" Yoshida laughs. "You're absolutely right, we had that discussion too, but we're adding it anyway." Your character's bangs will also be visible under headgear, which is a small but very welcome change.

Later in the cycle, patch 7.31 introduces the second Cosmic Exploration location, Phaenna, along with new Phantom Weapon enhancement quests. The deep dungeon, Pilgrim's Traverse, will arrive in patch 7.35 alongside the Yok Huy allied society quests and the next step in our hard-boiled, Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures. With all that set up, it's finally time for Yoshida to actually dive into the game and show us some early glimpses, courtesy of his trademark Lalafell Black Mage.

We start with San d'Oria, the second stage in our FF11 crossover alliance raid. You'll certainly see some familiar zones if you have played the other Final Fantasy MMO, with Ronfaure and Horlais Peak featuring early on. Faithbound Kirin is our first boss fight, boasting its classic manticore-style design (and even some voice lines of its own). Look forward to some big visual tells for attacks, including large floating hands and his raised, glowing tale, along with its ability to call on the FF11 incarnations of the Four Lords.

"Well, well, well," Yoshida says as Seiryu appears. "He summons the Four Lords, but we didn't want to add them all at once." He also points to a key UI change, with the introduction of a small cast bar that appears underneath the name plate over his foe's head. He notes that this is currently only available "on bosses that we've enabled," and that you can turn it off in the settings if you'd rather not see it.

Getting your hands on Orchestrion Rolls should be easier this time, with alliance-specific coffer drops and a total of twelve up for grabs. Yoshida then breaks out his trademark printed papers to show off the gear rewards, which include some real winners. There's the Shantotto-style Errant set, the incredibly popular Maxixi clothes worn by FF11 Dancers, and a version of Prishe's outfit. We also get a quick look at some of the new PvP gear, which is a lot more modern and features neon hoods and headphones, stylish jackets and shades, and plenty of others that you'll definitely be seeing across Limsa very soon.

While we're on the topic of valuable glam, next on our list is the new treasure dungeon, Vault Oneiron. This looks incredible, appearing to take place on a ship as it soars through an electrope-infused cyberspace, with three Outrunners acting as a slot machine that determines your fights and rewards. There have been a handful of concerns about 'underwhelming' glam options in recent weeks, but what we see here appears to answer that in style with some incredibly fancy outfits joining the already-impressive roster of alliance raid and PvP clothing.

After a break, we turn to look at the new deep dungeon, which Yoshida emphasizes has been changed "quite a bit because we want many players to enjoy it." Pilgrim's Traverse takes us back to the fairy kingdom of Il Mheg on The First, where we'll of course be reunited with our beautiful branch Feo Ul. Beyond that, however, this latest addition might actually be emblematic of a greater sea change, if Yoshida's opening speech is to be believed.

"There are a few things we want to change with FF14 overall and a few of those things I will touch on while introducing this deep dungeon," Yoshida explains. It's been more than ten years since 2.0, which he says "really didn't have that much content." Since then, a lot has been added, and typically there's been a greater casual focus for uneven-numbered patches and more hardcore options for the even-numbered updates. "I've been reading a lot of the feedback you gave after the last PLL, and I've been doing a lot of thinking since - when we add new content, what kind of player is supposed to enjoy it?"

"We have so much content in FF14 right now," Yoshida continues, "but for someone who doesn't do savage, an 'even patch' might bring zero content. When we're adding ten sorts of new content, hardcore players might enjoy three of them, casual players might enjoy three, all-rounders maybe four to six. It's rare to have someone who enjoys all ten. So a design philosophy change I want to get into is to show how there are different ways to enjoy the same content, in a casual way or a more hardcore way."

Yoshida says he still believes both sides of the player spectrum need "their own extremes" in terms of activities, but wants to show off Pilgrim's Traverse as an example of something that can run the gamut. Unlike previous incarnations where you could only party match for the first 30 floors, you'll now be able to do it for the full 100 (although the core quest still ends after floor 30). To help compensate for this, you can restart from floors 21, 31, 51, and 71, though I'm sure there will be an achievement for soloing the whole run in one attempt.

As with previous incarnations of the mode, you'll level up your chosen job as you fight through the floors, with a breather every ten levels. Yoshida notes that we can expect some lingering sin eaters to appear among the boss battles, and that while they've lowered the number of one-shots early it'll get pretty tough later on. "We're trying to go back to the difficulty level of Heaven on High," he states, referencing one of the tougher (but also more popular) deep dungeons of old, introduced in Stormblood.

Once you make it all the way to the floor 99 boss, there will be a standalone option to just battle it in a one-off encounter as "a way of practice." Beating it here won't get you to floor 100, but does offer some rewards, and allows you to get used to the fight without having to restart all the way from the floor 71 checkpoint. Once you've honed your skills, you can return to the full mode to "discover what awaits on floor 100." There will be many rewards, of course, including some that you can sell via the marketboard, and yes, the beautiful bush seen above is one of the mounts on offer.

Among the other rideable options we'll be getting in the patch are some additional deep dungeon enemy types, a floating chandelier, and a hoverboard that will most likely come from Cosmic Exploration. If you have a penchant for prodding people's prog PTSD, your time has come, as there's even a Yan mount, based on the notorious mob that plagued people's attempts to clear the AAC Cruiserweight M2 savage raid against Sugar Riot. Over on the minion side of things, we see an ice-white beaver, which is described as "A mysterious creature found in the Pilgrim's Traverse" that fuses beaver with sin eater.

If you're a particularly hardcore raider, The Final Verse (Quantum) is for you. You'll earn offerings by reaching floor 100 of the deep dungeon, and can then take on this especially challenging fight against Eminent Grief in a party of four. You'll need at least 15 offerings to take it on, but they won't be consumed unless you defeat the boss and open the rewards coffer. You'll get 40 for completing the initial quest, and can get more in Pilgrim's Traverse or buy them from less-inclined players via the marketboard.

There are five types of offerings, and you can use up to eight of each type for a total of 40 in a single attempt. Doing so upgrades the boss's maximum health and the potency of its four core damage types (physical, light, dark, and fire), making the fight harder but with a greater payout if you overcome the challenge. "Players can adjust based on the offerings," Yoshida explains, "if you feel like your weakness is DPS, maybe you don't want to increase the boss's HP, but instead make their light damage stronger."

That's not all, however, as the total number of offerings you make will also impact the mechanics of the fight. "We think it's boring if we just change stats," Yoshida says, encouraging players to experiment with different combinations to find what works for their party. "Please give this a try," he adds, "you're not losing the offerings unless you clear and get the rewards anyway. And if you see you can clear with 15 offerings, why don't you try a few more?"

At its maximum, Yoshida teases that the battle will be harder than a fourth-floor savage, albeit with a slightly shorter duration. "Some of the mechanics with 40 offerings will be ultimate level," he remarks, "even enough to have a race here." Alongside the guaranteed drops here, you can also earn Pieces of the Blessed Hoard from the deep dungeon's regular final battle, along with Challenge Log rewards for reaching specific milestones in the mode.

I didn't expect the deep dungeon to have such a wide range of options incorporated, but if it proves popular then it might be a great sign for the future. We also get confirmation that a criterion dungeon is in the works, with plans to include it in patch 7.4. Yoshida acknowledges that such a variety has been a regular request: "Of course, I understand when the feedback is, 'Why now? Too slow,' but we also need to start somewhere."

It's then time for an in-game demonstration of Pilgrim's Traverse, and we get to see some of the mechanics. Votives are a way to gamble on the next floor, and can create a variety of effects both positive and negative. Pomanders and treasure coffers return, and the latter can award Illumed Aetherpool Glass Fragments, which are tradable for rewards including a suit reminiscent of Shadowbringers' Aenc Thon, Lord of the Lengthsome Gait. The Accursed Hoard, meanwhile, will hand out mounts, minions, and Orchestrion Rolls, including a Feo Ul minion: "I was told Feo was angry they weren't turned into a minion yet," Yoshida jokes.

With such a long show, Yoshida and Murouchi take a second pause, before returning to talk about system updates. Responding to a chat comment, Yoshida says the team is "almost done" with updates to increase the number of placed housing items, "but we need a bit more time, sorry." He mentions improvements to the blacklist are on the way, and that you'll now be able to buy and stack Phoenix Downs, with a 360-second recast timer and the ability to use them to res players in combat during deep dungeons, instanced dungeons, treasure dungeons, guildhests, four-player trials, and variant dungeons.

A new 'portrait mode' has been added to gpose, letting you quickly rotate the screen 90 degrees to capture high-quality snaps of your WoL. There's the ability to rotate text stickers, and a new chromatic aberration filter for more stylized snaps. You're also able to adjust the intensity of colored filters. Over in the Gold Saucer, Wuk Lamat, Koana, and Bakool Ja Ja have joined the roster of Doman Mahjong companions that can cheer you on as you play.

The character display range has been increased, with two new settings to let you see other people and enemies from further out, although the maximum limit on characters remains the same. Yoshida then shows off chat bubbles, which are disabled by default, and won't prevent text from appearing in the chat log as normal even when turned on. They support up to either one or two lines of text as preferred, and you can adjust their appearance, including the bubble and text colors, according to your chat mode.

You won't see chat bubbles during battle or in PvP, however, a decision Yoshida says the team "debated a lot." He worried that such an inclusion "forces players to use the feature," such as making people hit a specific macro when they get a debuff. "We didn't want to create the environment where players might feel forced, by other players as well, to use the feature during raids," he explains, adding, "This is for now and might change in the future."

Finally, Yoshida also notes some key PvP balance changes. Purify's recast time has been reduced from 24 seconds down to just four, but now has an MP cost of 2,500, meaning you'll have to consider its use carefully. The Resilience effect now lasts just two seconds, down from three. To help keep track of the action, there will now be persistent visual effects for players affected by Undead Redemption, Nebula, Chiten, Wreath of Fire, and Wreath of Ice.

That's all for today's livestream. As ever, a huge thank you to 'Miuna' and 'iluna minori' on the official FF14 Discord [link, opens in a new window] for their live translation of the event. The Final Fantasy 14 7.3 release date is Tuesday August 5.

Be sure to check in on the FF14 servers to ensure you're up to date with potential maintenance times ahead of the launch. If you want to make sure you've got space for all your hotbars, glam plates, and emote grids, take a look at our guide to the best gaming monitor in 2025.

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