Summary
Final Fantasy 14fans have been up in arms over the past few days, ever since the release of Patch 7.1’s preliminary patch notes. While there was plenty of good stuff in there, such asthe increased Starbird drop chancesandthe added details to our little piggies, a new hairstyle coming in Patch 7.1 has ruffled a few feathers, one which was “inspired” bya Hairstyle Design Contest winner entry from back in 2023.
The hairstyle was submitted by a player called Madqueenmomo and was titled “Natural Curls”, and the design showed off various races from the game sporting the hairstyle, which was slightly short and very curly. It’s a cute little hairstyle that looks very different to what we have in the game so far, but any potential excitement turned into anger once Square Enix actually revealed what the hairstyle would look like in the game.
You can see the hairstylebeing shown of on a female Roegadyn and a male Au Ra in the patch notes, and you should immediately notice that it’s far less curly than the design, and instead looks a lot longer and wavier. This led to widespread complaints about how the hairstyle looked “nothing like” the design it was supposedly inspired by. The anger was so widespread, that it now seems to have forced Square Enix into an official apology.
Final Fantasy 14 Patch 7.1’s New Hairstyle Has Forced Square Enix To Apologize
On Sunday evening, a Square Enix community representative called Chesskythrelayed a message from the Final Fantasy 14 development team to irritated fans on the official forums, who thanked them for the feedback and apologized for the “major confusion” over the past few days. They then go on to explain the reasoning behind the changes to the original design, and it sounds as though one of the biggest hurdles was technical limitations:
“For this patch, we started work to implement “Natural Curls” from the winning entries of the Hairstyle Design Contest, based on the idea of adding not only straight hair but also a variety of other hairstyles,” says Chesskyth. “However, as the development work progressed, the light, delicate, and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls could not be implemented perfectly, despite implementation of the recent graphical update in FFXIV, due to limitations such as the polygon count.”
The statement goes on to explain that the Natural Curls hairstyle was then replaced by the “Doing The Wave” hairstyle, which is what we have now, but the patch notes claimed the hairstyle was “inspired” by the contest winner since it was the original base. Finally, fans were given another apology for the whole fiasco, and the promise that Square Enix will “persevere in our efforts to look for other ways to implement this hairstyle”.
Unfortunately, it’s done little to ease the anger felt by some, with a good deal now irritated that the developers are hiding behind technical limitations despite Square Enix being a gigantic company. It’s an argument which has often been trotted out for other requests from fans, such as glam restrictions,which came into question once again after the reveal of this season’s PvP glam. In any case, at least we have an official explanation now, and the promise that Natural Curls is still on the table despite this new hairstyle.
Final Fantasy 14 (2010)
WHERE TO PLAY
Square Enix’s popular MMO, Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, has players step into the role of the Warrior of Light in the world of Eorzea. There, they find themselves testing their mettle against Primals, the Garlean Empire, the Ascians, and plenty of other threats.This award-winning MMO now has multiple expansions to its name, with the most recent Endwalker expansion bringing the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc to a close. Director and producer Yoshi-P has promised lots of plans for future content and the game has regular updates to keep players occupied.
