The update for Final Fantasy 14 is being delayed by COVID-19. Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida addressed the game’s problems on the official website, saying that while most of the work was finished for the most recently released patch (version 5.25), the situation for the in-progress patch is different and will most likely not make its scheduled June release. This is due to the fact that one of the staff members for the studio behind Final Fantasy, Square Enix HQ (based in Tokyo, Japan) had worker test positive for coronavirus. Because of this, the workers were forced to implement a work from home policy until May 6th, which is not always easy to do when working on video games.
Yoshida then goes on to explain that a big part of the delay lies in the fact that there is a lockdown policy in several countries (and for nonessential businesses) due to COVID-19, resulting in a shortage of workers to help with aspects such as animation, gameplay, and voice acting. On the official website, he tells, “We are terribly sorry for the disappointment this may cause our players, as we know you look forward to new patches,” and then goes on to say that the company prioritizes the physical and mental health of its workers and game developers. Towards the end, he also goes to comfort fans of the games, saying that even though the patch is facing a delay, that will not impact the already pre-existing Final Fantasy game servers and how the games run themselves. Final Fantasy Shadowbringers is avalible on PlayStation 4 and PC currently.
Like Final Fantasy, many other games and studios are seeing a halt in their developmental progress due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Just recently, The Last of Us 2 has faced large delay along with Fallout 76. At the same time of these delays, many companies have used their wide audiences to their advantage and moved to donate their proceedings towards coronavirus relief and research.