The upcoming Final Fantasy XIV Patch 5.3 update, originally planned for release in June, has been delayed due to the recently-declared state of emergency in Tokyo.
Though the FFXIV team was fortunate enough to finish and release patch 5.25 as scheduled on April 7, the current situation in Tokyo and around the world will affect significantly their planned development schedule.
According to the post written by FFXIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida on the game’s web site, the state of emergency will cause the follow delays:
- Delayed delivery of graphical assets due to the lockdown of cities in East Asia, North America, and Europe.
- Delayed voice recording due to the lockdown of cities in Europe.
- Delayed to development tasks performed by Tokyo staff due to work-from-home/shelter-in-place limitations.
- Production and QA teams operating well below normal capacity due to work-from-home/shelter-in-place limitations.
“We are at this time undecided as to whether it will be feasible to limit the delay to two or three weeks, or if it will be closer to a month.”
Employees will now work from home to send responses from support desk and maintain servers from home.
“I’d like you to know that myself, the development team, and the production team are all doing fine at present. We’re currently testing remote work environments and applications so that we can resume patch development on all fronts.”
[Source]: Final Fantasy XIV – NA: On the Impact of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on FFXIV Service and Development.