2026 FanFests

[Tint]

I am thinking we are going to witness major content drought.

Well, considering that expansions release with no content and we would basically have to wait till 2028 until the things we want from 8.0 actually releases...

But hey, the meat of 7.0 is still yet to be released, so there is that.

[remiff]

Given the release schedule and the fact that the last fanfest takes place at the end of 2026, we can expect the expansion about 6 months after the final fanfest.
However, since the cycle is really strange right now, that means it’s confirmed for spring/summer 2027.
Patch 7.5 comes out in May 2026, so it’ll be a full year without content until then.

[SkankyRoe]

I hope it's not 2027... but likely it is.

That said, he did say this: "Our 2026 Fan Fests will kick off major future plans which we'll be rolling out at a whirlwind pace"
What does he mean by whirlwind pace-

It really is extremely strange having the fanfests so spread out, and very much indicates 8.0 not releasing until at least spring 2027. But that doesn't make much sense; if we go by the usual cadence, 7.4 should release early January and 7.5 in late May, leaving almost a year to go until the next expansion. Such a massive amount of time between the final big patch and the next expansion would be a VERY bad idea, especially with how poorly DT has been received when it comes to content drought and release cadence being too long.

The only thing I can think of, and it's VERY farfetched, is that they're increasing the number of .x patches per expansion; a theoretical 7.6 would release around mid-October, which would them put 7.65 in early February and 8.0 on schedule for the usual mid-summer release.

[OdrN]

Since when we have an expansion every 3 years?
We should have a 7.6 to fill the gap at this rate...
I'm not happy with that.

[ItsKylos]

It really is extremely strange having the fanfests so spread out, and very much indicates 8.0 not releasing until at least spring 2027. But that doesn't make much sense; if we go by the usual cadence, 7.4 should release early January and 7.5 in late May, leaving almost a year to go until the next expansion. Such a massive amount of time between the final big patch and the next expansion would be a VERY bad idea, especially with how poorly DT has been received when it comes to content drought and release cadence being too long.

The only thing I can think of, and it's VERY farfetched, is that they're increasing the number of .x patches per expansion; a theoretical 7.6 would release around mid-October, which would them put 7.65 in early February and 8.0 on schedule for the usual mid-summer release.

Most of the time, it takes more than half a year from the last Fanfest until the next expansion actually releases. So we’re probably looking at mid-2027. Crazy. Just crazy.

Maybe I’ll still grab the new glamour set, though I really like the hat.

But no, I’m not okay with 2027. At this point, the game often feels more like a paid waiting simulator.

Kirby is calling for me. :3

We have seen a 2.5 year between expansion with EW -> DT, so I feel that takes precedence over any fanfest pattern (considering SHB was only 3 months-ish after the fanfests... since they are events that also take time to plan, you need to schedule with 3rd parties, etc., I wouldn't consider fanfest a reliable way to gauge it.

I expect a Jan 2027 (maybe Feb) if it's 2.5 years- but the "Whirlwind Pace" makes it sound they are going to make it release before that even- I don't expect it, but it's also just very weird phrasing lol

[Jeeqbit]

I told everyone it would be 2027. My predictions for the dates were...

NA Fanfest
Prediction: 27th February - 2nd March 2026
Reality: April 24th-25th

EU Fanfest
Prediction: Late May/Early June 2026
Reality: July 25/26th 2026

JP Fanfest
Prediction: Late July/Early August 2026
Reality: October 31st - November 1st 2026

The first 2 fanfests suggest the patch cycle is set to be thrown off by 1 month. JP Fanfest suggest it is likely to be thrown off by 3 months. Why? Because remember, they have to do the media tour after JP fanfest and there is a good month of an embargo on that and at least a month before and after.

Now remember, there were 6 months between the JP Fanfest and 7.0.

Thus, we could see 8.0 all the way in May 4th 2027 (assuming 26 weeks after JP Fanfest like Dawntrail was), which is once again 3-4 months later than the expected time of January.

[Asgon]

the patch release schedules and the released content in those are getting embarrassing at this point

[ItsKylos]

I told everyone it would be 2027. My predictions for the dates were...

NA Fanfest
Prediction: 27th February - 2nd March 2026
Reality: April 24th-25th

EU Fanfest
Prediction: Late May/Early June 2026
Reality: July 25/26th 2026

JP Fanfest
Prediction: Late July/Early August 2026
Reality: October 31st - November 1st 2026

The first 2 fanfests suggest the patch cycle is set to be thrown off by 1 month. JP Fanfest suggest it is likely to be thrown off by 3 months. Why? Because remember, they have to do the media tour after JP fanfest and there is a good month of an embargo on that and at least a month before and after.

Now remember, there were 6 months between the JP Fanfest and 7.0.

Thus, we could see 8.0 all the way in the middle of March 2027 (assuming 21 weeks after JP Fanfest like Dawntrail was), which is once again 2-3 months later than the expected time of January.

Most probable is that we are going to see a SHB situation where the gap is only around 3 months. Physical events with reliance on 3rd parties doesn't really make the best form to predict an expansion. The 2.5 year gap is more reliable IMO.

[Avoidy]

This is grim. They didn't even soften the blow with a good Rising event. It was just another NPC walkathon leading to a minion of a character who exemplifies the kind of bad writing that DT is infamous for. Meanwhile, the real event was taking place in the cash shop, where there were hundreds of items on sale, a new outfit, and a scion minion. Scrolling by the sale items, it truly hit home that every single one of those things should have been an in game earnable reward, but weren't because the cash shop had to exist. Even the old event items should have simply returned yearly, alongside old npcs, with the option to simply run the old quest again for the old rewards. This way new people truly don't miss out on old event rewards. But no, gotta milk your subscribed players a little harder. And where's the money going? You can't afford to make content with longevity. You can't afford to make shorter patch cycles. You can't afford to ship a patch that works without several hotfixes. You can't afford to just release stuff on time without delays. Legit this game's just a cash cow now. Imagine if you ran an onlyfans account where you took money from guys every month, and then once every 4.5 months you'd put out like 3 poorly composed photographs that were just imitations of old pictures you took 10 years ago, and you quickly deleted them after a month so that anyone who joined you late would have to purchase those old images separately on your separate locked patreon or something. And you'd have like, a goal where every two years you'd release a really hype video, except now you can't even do that on time, and when you do release a video it's like hot garbage or includes some other character in there that nobody wants to see who keeps jumping in front of the camera and ruining the whole experience. It sounds like such a grift, such a terrible experience, but when Square does it, it's a 10/10 critically acclaimed mmo? Give me a break, man.

I've gotten a bit off topic, but yeah this has not been a good month for SE announcements. Each one was worse than the last, with this being the cherry on top. 8.0 being a bit late wouldn't even be so bad, if DT hadn't been such a dumpster fire expansion from pretty much every perspective except raiding -- and now even the raiders are leaving, because despite having this expansion tailor made for just them, baby didn't get his ultimate on time so now that's a wrap. There's a very real sense that we're just waiting around for 8.0 to be garbage as well.

[Jeeqbit]

I miscounted it because of how Windows calendar is.

8.0 could actually be more like May 4th 2027 and at that point they may as well just do June 2027 again and actually go for the most giant patch lull we've ever had.