Today, during Final Fantasy XIV Letter from the Producer Live 87, Square Enix announced more details and revealed plenty of footage about update 7.3.
As usual, Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida and Global Community Producer Toshio Murouchi provided all the relevant details during the livestream from Square Enix’s headquarters in Tokyo.
We learned earlier today that the update titled “The Promise of Tomorrow” will release on August 5, 2025.
First of all, Occult Crescent: South Horn, will get an update. If you enter the isle as an alliance of 24 players or more, a new exclusive instance will be crreated.
If this alliance meets the requirements for entering the Forked Tower, an auroral mirage will happen five minutes after entry. The instance will remain exclusive until the mirage expires up to 10 minutes after arrival.
The minimum number of players required to use Sanguine Ciphers to enter the Forked Tower will go from 16 to 24. It will be possible to check the Sanguine Ciphers that have been offered and players’ selection status (entry confirmed/eligible for selection/ineligible for selection).
Players need to offer at least one Sanguine Cipher to be selected for entry in the Forked Tower. If you have offered none, you won’t be selected anymore.
When there is a Critical Encounter active Auroral Mirages won’t happen, and treasure coffers following encounters with persistent pots and happy bunnies will be adjusted to always include Elnightenment Gold or Silver pieces.
We then get to see the first footage of the new Alliance raid Echoes of Vana’diel – San d’Oria: The Second Walk, inspired by Final Fantasy XI.
Interestingly, we also learn that orchestrion rolls will drop in a different way in this raid. They will drop from alliance-specific coffers, not subject to the weekly limit. There will be 3 from the second boss, 3 from the third boss, and 6 from the fourth boss.
We also get to see some of the rewards, which you can enjoy below. Incidentally, the first picture definitely shows a new hairstyle from the design contest.
Next we get to take a look at the new Crystalline Conflict arena, titled The Bayside Battleground.
Players will be able to register for casual matches in parties of up to 2.
Another change is the fact that a timer will display the time remaining to the respawn of medicine kits.
Purify will get a shorter recast timer (4s instead of 24 s), but will consume 2,500 MP. The duration of the resilience effect will be dropped from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
The Undead Redemption, Nebula, Chiten, Wreath of Fire, and Wreath of Ice statuses will get persistent visual effects.
Below you can check out a few of the new rewards you can get in the upcoming season from PvP.
The next piece of footage is dedicated to the new Treasure Dungeon, titled Vault Oneiron.
Below you can check out two outfits you can get with the rewards from the Treasure Dungeon, on top of new crafter and gatherer gear.
The next topic is the new Deep Dungeon, which will be titled Pilgrim’s Traverse. It’s worth mentioning that it’ll come a bit later in the Patch 7.3X cycle, specifically with update 7.35.
The concept behind this content is “a deep dungeon for everyone,” offering something for everyone to enjoy, whether they’re causals or hardcore. It’ll be viable for both solo players and static parties.
This is a bit of a new concept for FFXIV, which historically had content dedicated specifically to hardcore or more casual players over he years.
The story is as follows:
“Petitioned by the faerie king, the Warrior of Darkness undertakes a survey of architectural remnants on the First – the Church of the First Light in II Mheg.
Discover what ties the fallen church to the fae folk, and a hidden truth regarding the faerie king…”
The requirements to enter are having cleared level 50 of Palace of the Dead, having completed the main scenario quest of Endwalker, and be level 51 or higher.
There are 100 floors to eplore, with a boss battle every 10 floors, you can see some example of bosses below.
Players will automatically be equipped with Aetherpool gear, which can be enhanced through dungeon progression. Specifically, upgrades will happen when opening treasure chest. The weapons can be used in normal content when you reach a certain level of enhancement.
Defeating the boss on floor 30 will complete the initial quest. Differently from previous Deep Dungeons, you can attempt every level either with a fixed party or a matched party.
The boss fights from floor 31 onward will increase in difficulty every 10 floors. If your party wipes, you will restart from floor 1, 21, 31, 51, and 71, offering more checkpoints compared to previous Deep Dungeons.
There will also be a new duty allowing players to directly challenge the floor 99 boss at any time and as often as they like.
Of course, you need to first unlock it by reaching floor 99. Then you can gain access by speaking to an NPC. The encounter is called “The Final Verse.”
You can fight it with a party between 1 and 4 members and it rarely drops valuable rewards.
You also earn 7 Luminous Oil (which can be exchanged for rewards) on flor 20, 2 Pieces of the Blessed Hoard on floor 30, 8 Luminous Oil on floor 50, 3 Pieces of the Blessed Hoard on floor 70, and 10 more Luminous Oil after beating the final boss.
More rewards will be available via the challenge log.
There’s also a hardcore version of The Final Verse called The Final Verse (Quantum) that it requires using offerings rewarded from the quest that you unlock by reaching Floor 100.
You get 40 offerings by completing the quest. More can be found by unearthing pieces of the Accursed Hoard in the Deep Dungeon and can be traded via the Market Board.
These are consumed only if you successfully defeat the boss named Eminent Grief and open the treasure coffer that appears afterward. You need 4 members to enter and you can use the party finder.
You need to offer at least 15 offerings, and there arem five types, Sacramental Spirits, Sacramental Spices, Sacramental Grain, Sacramental Light, and Sacramental Lilies. You can use up to 8 of each type for a total of up to 40.
Each offering increases a specific stat for the boss, Physical Damage, Maximum HP, Lihght Damage, Fire Damage, and Dark Damage. Basically, by using different combinations of offerings you can customize the boss to your needs.
The boss’ mechanics also change depending on the total number of offerings used.
We then move on to the explanation of Pieces of the Blessed Hoard. They drop occasionally from The Final Verse and always in the Quantum version, the more offerings you use, the more you get.
You can also get some via the challenge log each week by reaching specific areas.
If you complete the Deep Dungeon solo you get an achievement and tite, and there will be a ranking board. Difficulty is comparable to previous Deep Dungeons.
Within the Deep Dungeon you can find Votives, which can cause a variety of effects to be applied to the next floor. They can be either positive or negative.
For instance, the players can be transformed into powerful monsters, they may get a Regen effect, the map may become hidden, the number of traps may be increased, and more.
You can also find Pomanders that provide variou benefits like displaying the entire floor map or reduce the number of enemies in the next aras.
Treasure coffers can grant enhancements to weapons and armor, Pomanders, Juniper Incense, and Illumed Aetherpool Glass Fragments.
Juniper Incense can be used to receive aid from Feo Ul like poweful attack or support in the current floor.
Illumed Aetherpool Glass Fragments can be exchanged for varoious items including medical supplies for the Deep Dungeon and Framer’s Kits.
The Accursed Hoard includes all kinds of items, from mounts to minions, to orchestrion rolls. You can see some below.
Next, we get to take a look of the gameplay of the Deep Dungeon itself.
Below you can check out some of the new mounts and minions you can earn in update 7.3. It’s worth mentioning that only some of them are from the Deep Dungeon.
The update will also a change to Phoenix Downs, which will finally become useful by becoming sable in Deep Dungeons, Instanced Dungeons, Treasure Dungeons, Guildhests, 4-player Trials, and Variant Dungeons.
They will be available to purchase from vendors and will become stackable to 999. They will get a 360-second recast timer.
Cast bars have also been added to the nameplates of bosses. This can be disabled but is enabled by default.
The blacklist functionality will be improved, with details shared on the Lodestone.
Group Pose will get its own updates with the addition of Portrait Mode, which lets you rotate the screen 90 degrees at the toch of a button. You can preview the portrait image without rotating the screen and edit/decorate it. When you are done, you can rotate the screen and take the picture using your full screen area. You can also rotate text stickers.
Below you can see a few screenshots showing how it works.
An option has been added for Chromatic Aberration to adjust color fringing and distortion. You can see a comparison below.
A very welcome new option is the ability to adjust the intensity of filters. Below you can see the difference between different levels of posterization and monochrome filters.
New Doman Mahjong voices have been added for Wuk Lamat, Koana, and Bakool Ja Ja.
The character display range will get a new option. “Normal” will be the current range (100m). With “Wide” you’ll see characters and enemies further away. With “Maximum” the draw distance will be greatly increased (albeit the maximum number of models displayed will remain the same).
You can see the difference below.
Last, but not least, we take a look at the chat bubble feature.
It’s optional and disabled by default and even when enabled, text will still display in the chat log as usual. You can toggle it on or off by chat mode. You can also set chat bubble and font color by chat mode.
You can set them to display 1 or 2 lines of text, and the text will be truncated after reaching a certain word count. Chat bubbles will never appear in battle and in PvP.
You can watch them in action below.
If you’d like to read more about update 7.3, you can check out our recap of the previous Letter from the Producer Live, which provided the first details.
If you’re unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XIV, it’s currently available for PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox Series X|S.
Incidentally, Final Fantasy XIV is one of the pillars of Square Enix’s game lineup, and its recurring revenue does wonders to keep up its otherwise shaky financials.
