Final Fantasy 14 players have been rejoicing about an upcoming change to the game arriving in Patch 7.4, and it turns out that a mod that Square Enix recently shut down played a role. While players who used said mod were sour about the shutdown impacting their Final Fantasy 14 experience, this upcoming change may help to soften the blow.
Earlier in 2025, the popular Final Fantasy 14 mod Mare Synchronos received a cease and desist order from Square Enix. After operating for several years without any significant blowback from the developer, the fans were shocked to see it suddenly go, especially after it had become an integral part of the experience for users. Mare Synchronos allowed users to change the way their player character looked and how their equipment appeared, and to share those visuals with other mod users.
Final Fantasy 14 Will Bring Back Some Unobtainable Rewards
Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida confirms that some previously unobtainable rewards will come back for more players to earn.
Mare Synchronos Is Gone, But It’s Having an Impact on Final Fantasy 14 Now
In a chat with Famitsu, game director Yoshi-P discussed one of the most hyped changes to the game arriving in Final Fantasy 14‘s Patch 7.4, which will remove the vast majority of restrictions from the game’s glamour system. Players have been asking for these changes for years, and Yoshi-P explained the reasoning behind finally agreeing to the request, which included the complaints after Mare Synchronos was taken down, and why people enjoyed using it in the first place.
In August, Mare Synchronos suddenly shut down after Square Enix served a “legal inquiry” to the mod creator. With over 200,000 users in the mod’s Discord server alone, it’s a decision that wasn’t made lightly, and wasn’t received well. While Mare Synchronos allowed players to modify their characters in ways never intended by the developers, it also bypassed the restrictions on the Final Fantasy 14 glamour system. Currently, the glamour system is set up so that players can alter the appearance of their equipment to look like another piece of equipment they own, thus allowing them to keep the good stats while changing their appearance entirely. However, there are limitations, as the swapped-in glamour gear has to be naturally equippable by the class the player is using, and be at their level or lower.
Starting in Patch 7.4, these restrictions will be done away with, allowing players to glamour their gear with equipment from any class and any level. Yoshi-P noted that after he shared a statement regarding the use of mods in FF14, players reached out with feedback saying that they only enjoyed the game because they had access to mods like Mare. He decided that leaving the playstyle up to players by unlocking the glamour system would help to keep similar mods and tools from being used. It not only encouraged him to make the change, but to make it quickly.
However, that isn’t the only reason Yoshi-P decided to make the change. He explained that his personal preference in games like Final Fantasy 14 is to have a restriction on fashion in order to maintain the Final Fantasy aesthetic. In other words, by making players use equipment intended for their class, it ensured that they would resemble the classic Final Fantasy jobs and classes that the series has had since the get-go. However, he acknowledged that in this day and age, many MMORPGs have few restrictions on gear. When taking all of this into consideration, he decided that it was fine to hold onto his personal principles, but that it was time to stop requiring that of the players. The change apparently even startled the development team when he announced his decision.
While the changes to the glamour system won’t have an impact on actual player character appearances, just their gear, many in the community feel it’s a step in the right direction. Final Fantasy 14 players have often expressed that many of the game’s limitations are indicative of the age of the game, with 15 years between the original version of the game launching and now. However, Yoshi-P has suggested that other major changes could be coming to the game, suggesting that Final Fantasy 14 could get a second rebirth in the future, and that the team wants to “rethink everything from scratch to evolve the game.” Though there’s no way to please everyone, these changes may help to breathe new life into Final Fantasy 14 and help it to regain some of its lapsed playerbase.
- Released
-
August 27, 2013
- ESRB
-
T for Teen – Language, Mild Blood, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Engine
-
Originally the Crystal Tools engine, but currently it’s a custom engine using parts of the Luminous Engine.
