FF14 made its most tragic death scene worse without telling anyone

One of the most tragic death scenes in Final Fantasy 14 is now a little more heart-wrenching thanks to a stealth change in patch 6.2 Buried Memories (opens in new tab).

For the spoiler averse: The change adds in an additional line of dialogue to explain why neither our hero or their allies can save the injured character. Square Enix didn’t include it in the lengthy patch notes, but the dungeon where the cutscene plays got updated to support NPC parties for solo runs, which could explain why the change was made.

FF14 players who have finished the main story of the Heavensward expansion (which is available to play with the game’s free trial) will immediately recognize the pivotal scene that changed. Fan favorite character Haurchefant spends most of the expansion helping your character settle into Ishgard and, after the city’s leader reveals his true evil intentions, he makes a heroic leap to save you from a spear of light, ending in his death.

Ever since the expansion’s 2015 release date, fans have mourned Haurchefant and, if that wasn’t enough, future expansions kept reminding us through flashbacks and references (opens in new tab). It’s a loss that FF14 doesn’t want anyone to forget. Some were frustrated that there wasn’t a way to heal his wounds, especially if they played one of the game’s support classes—something FF14 occasionally acknowledges in cutscenes with unique dialogue options. The altered scene doesn’t go that far, but it does have Alphinaud, one of your longtime healer companions, comment (fully voiced too) on how the “wound is too deep” and that it “refuses to mend.”

In response to the news, FF14 players have been reminded of how heartbreaking the scene is and how much they miss their Ishgardian friend.

Twitter user Gelgumi (opens in new tab) explained why this addition lines up with how healing in the game’s fiction works: “Heal spells can only heal wounds that will naturally heal.” And others in a Reddit thread (opens in new tab) about the new scene think the change helps clarify this early in the game’s four-expansion-long storyline.

The new 6.2 patch includes some other slight cutscene changes and new dialogue for old dungeons along with a pseudo farming sim (opens in new tab). It’s not that common for Square Enix to go back and change things like this, other than when it makes playing the game’s early questlines a little less tedious. There’s no quality of life here though; in fact, it’s the opposite.