Good day, adventurers!
Matsui here with the latest in FFXI news.

As overseas players may or may not be aware, the Japanese Emperor will be abdicating in May, bringing an end to his reign, known as the “Heisei” era. The new emperor’s reign will be called the “Reiwa” era. Changing to a new era in Japan means that a lot of administrative documents and the like need to be updated to reflect the new nomenclature—but it also means that Golden Week is extra long this year, so I can’t really complain about that!

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I wanted to explain one more thing about why the name “Reiwa” is so significant in Japan. Normally, the era names are taken from Chinese historical classics, but Reiwa is the first time the era name has come from a Japanese classic—namely, the “Manyoshu,” a collection of poetry written over 1,300 years ago. The Manyoshu are one of the very first works in Japanese literature, and everyone learns about them in school. If I had to give a Western analog to them, I’d say that the closest thing would be Shakespeare, not only because of how ubiquitous it is in the cultural conscious, but because of the affect it had on all literary works that came after.

Anyway, enough history lessons for one day—let’s talk about Reiwa’s first version update!

First on the docket is this month’s job adjustments, which are targeting the white mage job.
The first major change is that Protectra V and Shellra V are moving from merit points to scrolls, meaning that we’re able to free up two merit point categories for other things. We’ve also made some adjustments to equipment that affects these two spells.

The other major adjustment is to Esuna, which we’ve elected to give a revamp to bring it closer to the way that Esuna functions in other FINAL FANTASY titles. This adjustment also affects alter egos.

For the monthly Ambuscade updates, this month we’re brining you a battle against two Gallu. I’m sure you’re all intimately familiar with how much of a royal pain their abilities can be, so we’ve decided to make them play a little more fairly, and give you a hint to boot: try to keep their HP values close.

The monthly Records of Eminence objectives are also being changed for the May version update. At the moment, you can view one year’s worth of rewards in-game, but remember that your deeds are never actually spent, so feel free to play at your own pace an accumulate them in a manner that best suits your playstyle.

In many ways, I think that Heisei was the era of video games—not just because that’s when they became mainstream, but also because of the just over 30 years of Heisei, 29 of them I spent as a game designer for here at Square Enix. So as we head into the future, I take a look over Heisei and an smile at all the progress the industry has made.

Below is the usual table of updates for May. As always, last-minute issues may arise that prevent some of these entries from making the final cut for this month, but we’re doing our utmost to bring you everything on the list.

Mission and Quest-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
MayRecord of Eminence・ Update the Monthly Objectives-
Content and System-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
MayAmbuscade・ Add new notorious monsters
・ Replace reward items
-
MayMerit Points・ Add feature to auto-charge Potpourri-
MayPorter Moogle・ Add to the list of supported items-
MayConfig・ Improve configuration window-
Battle-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
MayWhite Mage・ Change Merit Point Items -
MayWhite Magic Spell・ Adjust certain spell effects-
Item-related
Implementation TimingUpdate Task and OverviewIn-progress TaskNotes
MayItem・ Add new items
・ Adjust certain gear stats
-