During the Final Fantasy XIV US Fan Fest 2026 keynote, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida announced there will be a shift from a daily-based system to a weekly-based one, an armoury system update, character action skins, improved character creation options, and a system involving seasons after FFXIV Evercold and 8.0 appear. This is designed to make it easier to keep up with activities and eliminate some grind elements in the MMORPG. However, Yoshida also emphasized that the season system would not involve any sort of season pass or additional cost, and would instead involve a new pattern of releases and refer to every two patches together being considered a “season.” There will also be some FFXIV Raid changes after Evercold, with one being a new 8-person raid difficulty after 8.0.
With the FFXIV character activity widget UI update, the design will change and it will go from a daily-based system to a weekly-based one. Character growth, duty progress, and updates will all be in one screen, and we’ll be able to change the pose of our avatar on it. This will adjust the current Tomestones daily rotation to a weekly one, eliminating the need to rely on daily bonuses to max them out. When we go to a duty finder, we’ll be able to see how many activity points each mission would offer. This would let us max out sooner, unlocking gear and rewards. Also, with this new system, if someone misses a week, they will be able to catch up. Someone who finishes maxing out one week could also go back and get the points and rewards from the prior week if they missed them. Another change here will also involve the FFXIV Armoury system update. This will let you reflect your highest item level to other jobs, to make it easier to play as other jobs. However, special buffs that are class-specific will remain.
With the FFXIV Season system, it will be designed to make it easier to determine what happens and when. There will be no season passes or additional fees. Rather, the patches will be grouped together. So the first FFXIV Evercold season will consist of 8.0 and 8.1. The second would be 8.2 and 8.3. Yoshida also mentioned a goal will be to make the wait between major patches shorter with this system.
As for the FFXIV character creation options and additions coming in Evercold and 8.0, Naoki Yoshida mentioned more will be available as a result of things like the 7.0 graphics update. These will appear in 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and beyond. Yoshida joked there will be no butt sliders. However, when the expansion launches, we should see eye, hair, and skin tone color pickers, eye shadow, eye and lip customization, face paint layering, and toggling of certain parts of gear pieces. A number of slides showed the new customization options that will appear as a result of that.
With the FFXIV 8-person raid changes, Naoki Yoshida went over how it will work. He explained that currently, the clear rate for Normal difficulty raids of that type is 85%. However, the Savage clear rate is only, at best, 20%. So the new difficulty will fall between Normal and Savage. This will be a way to also get new gear.
There are also some elements of the new streamlining 8.0 Final Fantasy XIV Evercold elements that we’ll hear about at future FFXIV Fan Festival 2026 events. At the Berlin event between July 25-26, 2026, we’ll learn about the new character action skins. That will offer new designed action options. At Tokyo Fan Fest between October 31, 2026 and November 1, 2026, we’ll learn about new ways to increase item level. Naoki Yoshida noted in the past, only Tomestone Exchange and Savage Raids were way to increase it. However, there will be additional options after 8.0.
You can see the full day 1 stream here:
And here are the slides for the new updates to things like FFXIV character creation, character activity, and the armoury:
Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC, and the new expansion FFXIV Evercold debuts in January 2027.
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