It seems like the current ongoing COVID-19 pandemic isn't slowing down, and almost every day, we receive news of studios delaying their video games or suffering from delivering the quality they intended to for their fans due to remote work not being as effective or productive as in the office. Square Enix is the latest studio to discuss how the current quarantine measures are affecting their Final Fantasy XIV Online services and development.
The studio shared a lengthy blog post on the current state of what the development was working on prior to the remote work obligation, and how it was affected. Square Enix discussed how they were just able to deliver Final Fantasy XIV's patch 5.25 just before the restrictive measures were taken worldwide, however, the current situation has significantly affected the studio's quality assurance, voice recording, and general development actions.
Due to that, the promised Final Fantasy XIV patch 5.3 release window of mid-June is affected as a result of the points mentioned below. Therefore, Square Enix has delayed the update's release indefinitely till the situation is more clear.
- 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.
- Delays 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.
Though it is clear that patch 5.3, which was planned for mid-June, will be delayed because of the above.
The blog post goes on to reassure people the studio will continue to maintain the game's servers from home, however, Final Fantasy XIV's support team will understandably take longer to respond. If there are multiple reports on the same bug from the community, Square Enix will release a statement acknowledging its existence and confirm they are working on it, just to let people know the process is slower than what it usually takes to address these issues.
Read more about how the COVID-19 novel coronavirus is affecting the gaming world at our Coronavirus Gaming Convention Cancellations and Game Delays Hub.
What games and services do you think will continue to be affected the COVID-19 pandemic? How much do you think the quality of development of future video games and content updates under the remote work circumstance? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
