Final Fantasy XIV: Introducing the Island Sanctuary

Everything we know so far about Final Fantasy XIV's new Island Sanctuary.

We finally have some details on one of Endwalkers most anticipated Island Sanctuary. And its a different kind of content entirely. Here are all the details for you to check out!

The Island Sanctuary

We never really got details on what the Island Sanctuary will be like and what we could expect. The most we had on the content till now was the concept art that showed a character tending to their farm and animals. And as it seems.. the Island Sanctuary will be exactly that. A little bit more and probably what many expected to be instanced housing and then some. According to director and producer Naoki Yoshida, this will be a completely different kind of content. So lets go over the details.

Most of us expected the Island Sanctuary to be housing with some extra features. Like growing plants and looking at your minions and mounts interact with each other. But it seems to be a lot more than just that. This seems very close to a mixture of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon after all. And its gonna be free for every player. While we don't know yet how it's unlocked, the Island Sanctuary will be your personal little realm, for you to explore and build. To what extend is currently unknown, but we expect to be able to build different structures and far bit of customization.

And going by the picture above, its going to be huge. Sadly they couldn't show off any of the content live yet, because apparently it is still a little buggy and not quite ready. But yea, Roegadyn for scale. At least you'll also be able to mount up and travel your island in a speedy fashion. And at some point, you'll even unlock flying. Everything you'll need to build the island paradise of your dreams, or a simple retirement home for Warriors of Light will be here.

Yes, there'll be gathering involved! But don't worry you won't need any experience on crafters and gatherers either. But it would be nice and relaxing way to level them, we'll find more about that in due time. Instead there seem to be some elements of a survival game here, just without the monster slaying or desperately foraging for food. No instead you'll gather materials, as the island slowly opens up to you. Those you can use to make the process of crafting and gathering easier and on and on it goes. Lets just hope that there are plenty of spots to fish.

And don't worry about your inventory being filled up either. Everything will go into a separate inventory, which also means that you'll probably won't be able to sell any materials or crafts on the market board. Oh and there is no need for you to rush either. There isn't anything to gain here really. At least according to Yoshida. Rewards gained from the Island Sanctuary just to towards the Island Sanctuary. So you can freely take a break if you're satisfied with your island and just hang out.

That doesn't mean there isn't anything to do here. You can plant and cultivate seeds and it'll work completely different from the estate crops. Hopefully, because crossbreeding is hard and very complex. So hopefully here you'll just be able to plant some popoto's and pray you won't harvest a lalafell.

Oh and you can collect various creatures from the world of Final Fantasy XIV. And who wouldn't want a pet Goobbue? Knowing the team behind this game, all of them will probably require special care, maybe even some special housing. Some will most likely help you produce resources that you can use for crafts. And isn't the thought of having a flock of chocobos run across an open field exciting?

We should also mention that those creatures come also in rare colours, so I would imagine that there'll be some kind of a breeding system as well. And Yoshida also mentioned that you can give them names. All of them.

You'll have to build a base for it first. And according to Yoshida that process will be very customizable. After an initial phase, were you have to set up the absolute basics. You are free to do whatever you want. If you only want to grow crops, only grow corps. If you want to raise animals and make a products out of milk and wool, go ahead. Or you don't do any of that and make this your very own vacation home. Were you hang out in between raids and take screenshots. Or try out that new rotation you've been working on

We don't know yet if the system will work similarly to the housing system though. So we can't say you'll be able to just place things freely anywhere you want. Or if there is more of a modular system in place and you just get to pick what goes where.

Adding to the relaxing atmosphere, you can also set free your minions. All of them. And I do hope all of them get little interactions with the player and the animals you'll befriend here. Perhaps they'll also interact with each other or offer certain benefits. But that's left to be seen.

Of course, if there is production, there is profit to be made. Not on the market board though. As previously mentioned, everything you'll create on the Island Sanctuary will.. well go back into the Island Sanctuary. Your crafts, crops and materials gathered can apparently all be sold to a third party. Here the market will demand different things, either every day or every week. And can meet demands or just sell whatever you enjoy making.

Best results will however be whatever the market demand is, all of that will feed into a currency that you can in turn use to get rewards.

Exchanging currency for special items, that's nothing new for the veteran Final Fantasy XIV player. But I highly doubt it will be anything that'll be useful outside of the Island Sanctuary. It might be special housing items, or special building you'll only be able to place on your island. Rare animals or seeds for plants, special materials that'll make your life easier. And probably and most likely: new mounts and minion for you to collect.

And most importantly, yes, you can visit other players Islands and check them out. But the info implies that you'll have to invite/open up your islands for other players. So it'll probably be similarly to how the apartment system works at the moment.

This will probably open up a lot of options, especially for free companies and groups of players. Depending on how many players can be on an island at a given time, you'll be able to throw little celebrations and just hang out. Or even host public events on your island. I can definitely see there being little festivals organized on those, should the system allow for a large number of players on an island at once.

Yoshida also asks player for feedback, as they plan to continuously develop up until 7.0 and onwards. The idea of having NPC's visit your island was floating about and the director and producer said that they'd be open to the idea.

This marks something of a shift in Final fantasy XIV's content, and a welcome one at that. It's very different from what the game currently has and the team seems very excited to make this content into something special. And they are excited to show it off at the next live letter sometime in the near future. And it's completely optional, and you'll only get as much out of it as you put into it. So if you just want to do the bare necessities go ahead. The content is meant to be very open ended.

You can find a quick summary of the latest live letter here, and for more Final Fantasy XIV related news, visit us here on ESTNN