0hp: Final Fantasy XIV

FFXIV's Moogle Treasure Trove returns on 9 September with a two-part hunt

2026-09-03T00:00:00Z

The Moogle Treasure Trove returns on Wednesday 9 September 2026 as the First Hunt for Astronomy, by Square Enix's own announcement. The Trove, which is a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for replaying old content, is billed this time as a special edition marking the upcoming release of Evercold. It runs across two installments rather than one, and the headline reward is an uolon horn.

What is different about this one

	First Hunt	Second Hunt
Starts	9 September 2026	"a later date", no day given
Currency for exchange	different tomestones from the other hunt's, per the announcement	different again
Item lineup	its own	a different one
The uolon horn	yes	yes, by Square Enix's own note
Extra requirement	minimog and ultimog challenges award the item the horn needs	not stated

A tomestone, in case that table is the first you have met one, is a token the game pays you for finishing content, which you spend at a vendor. The announcement calls this event's ones irregular tomestones of astronomy I, and says the two hunts need different tomestones from each other.

Square Enix calls this run "a special edition" and says it takes place across two installments, which is the announcement's own way of marking it as not the usual shape.

Our take: what it means for players

The two-installment shape changes how much of this is urgent, and the answer is less than it looks.

Square Enix states plainly that the uolon horn is available in the Second Hunt too, so the reward is not on a clock that ends with part one. What does not carry is everything else. The announcement says the tomestones required for exchange differ between the installments, and that the item lineups differ too. Our reading is that anything banked in part one buys from part one's list and nothing else. Treat each half as its own shop with its own currency.

The two footnotes are where the earning goes wrong. Running content with an adventurer squadron, or through Duty Support, which is the system that fills a party with computer-controlled allies, awards no irregular tomestones of astronomy at all. That removes the most convenient way to farm old content alone. An unrestricted party has to have Level Sync switched on to receive them, and Level Sync is the rule that drops a strong character down to a lower area's power. Unrestricted parties are exactly how a high-level group blitzes low-level content, so the fastest method is also the one most likely to award nothing.

That exclusion is the one thing here we would argue with. Duty Support is the tool Square Enix built so a player without a regular group could still see old content. Switching it off for the event that rewards old content is a quiet tax on the people with the least flexible schedules. The event is otherwise the good kind: a currency earned by playing, spent from a fixed list, with nothing for sale.

The framing is worth a line of its own. Square Enix pegs this Trove to the release of Evercold rather than to a content lull. Our reading is that this is a catch-up window aimed at people levelling a job, meaning a character class, before the expansion. That is a different audience from the pre-patch drought a Trove usually fills.

What's next

Patch 7.56 arrives the day before, on 8 September, and Square Enix's own notice says it closes PvP Series 11 with it, PvP being short for player versus player.

A PvP Series is a numbered season of that side of the game's reward track. The Trove start date and the patch both sit on the calendar with the day we last checked them. Evercold is on the release tracker with no date at all, because Square Enix has not given one.

FFXIV on Switch 2 starts charging on 8 September, and the account link is permanent

2026-09-03T00:00:00Z

The free subscription period on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Final Fantasy XIV ends at 11:59 p.m. on Monday 7 September 2026 in each region. Square Enix's own notice explains what happens next in more detail than the date suggests. Billing on this platform does not work like the others.

A subscription, for anyone new to the game, is the recurring fee you pay to keep playing. And FFXIV is simply the usual short name for Final Fantasy XIV, which is why the coins below are called FFXIV Coins.

The rules that are specific to Switch 2

	How it works
Subscription scope	Separate from every other platform, even for an existing subscriber
Discount	Half price with an active subscription elsewhere, but not while a 30-day free play period is running there
Payment method	the subscription itself, FFXIV Coins from the Nintendo eShop only
Payment registration opens	8 September, 3:00 a.m. Pacific
Renewal	Automatic while the coin balance covers it, halted when it does not
Account link	Made on first launch, and cannot be undone or transferred
Nintendo Switch Online	Not required to play; members get one extra free teleport destination

Our take: what it means for players

Two of those lines cost money or characters if they are read late, and neither is the headline date.

Start with the one we think is indefensible. A subscription is rent on a world, and this is the same world, the same character and the same server. Charging a second time because the player picked up a different box is a platform tax wearing a product's clothes. The half-price discount is a discount off a fee that should not exist, and it comes with a condition on top.

The condition is the part that will catch people. On Switch 2, registering a Starter or Complete Edition, which are the two retail bundles, gets you a 30-day free play window opening on 8 September. While a free play period is active on another platform, the half-price Switch 2 subscription is not available. Square Enix adds that the discount does apply if remaining game time is still on the other platform when the charge lands. So the order of operations decides the price.

The account link is the other one, and it is the only genuinely irreversible step here. On first launch the Switch 2 user profile binds to a Square Enix account permanently. An existing player must pick their existing service account at the licence prompt. Choosing to create a new service account instead means, in Square Enix's words, that you will be unable to play as your existing character. The registered region has to match as well: an Americas account needs a Nintendo account registered in the United States, Canada or another applicable region.

One smaller trap is worth knowing before anyone blames the game. Hotbars, HUD layouts (the HUD being the bars and buttons drawn over the game screen) and macros are stored on the device rather than the account, and Square Enix says they are not synced automatically. So a character logged in on Switch 2 arrives with whatever that console holds, until the settings are uploaded from the other platform through the server backup feature and downloaded again here.

What's next

Patch 7.56 lands on 8 September and, by the same notice, is scheduled to resolve the launcher bug that currently stops it opening the coin purchase screen in the eShop. Until it does, coins are bought through the console home menu. Both dates are on the calendar with the day we last checked them.

FFXIV Patch 7.56 lands 8 September, and closes a reward season under it

2026-09-03T00:00:00Z

Patch 7.56 for Final Fantasy XIV is dated to the start of downtime on Tuesday 8 September 2026. The date comes from Square Enix's own notice that PvP Series 11 ends with the patch. PvP is short for player versus player, the part of the game where players fight each other, and a Series is a numbered season of its reward track.

That is a useful reminder, because the deadline people actually miss is the season closing under the patch rather than the patch itself.

What changed

Several things move on the eighth, and not all of them are updates.

What	When	Detail
Patch 7.56 downtime begins	Tue 8 Sep 2026	Brings beastmaster, a limited job (job is this game's word for a character class)
PvP Series 11 ends	Tue 8 Sep 2026	Series experience and level reset, rewards replaced
Series 11 rewards claimable until	end of Series 12	Trophy crystals carry over
Switch 2 free subscription period ends	Mon 7 Sep 2026, 23:59 local	30-day free play then starts 8 Sep
Moogle Treasure Trove, First Hunt for Astronomy	Wed 9 Sep 2026	Two installments, uolon horn reward

Beastmaster is the patch's headline, and it comes from a different notice. The Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XCIII digest was recorded at Fan Festival 2026 in Berlin, which is the game's own convention. Lead battle content designer Masaki Nakagawa walks through live gameplay of beastmaster there. Square Enix calls it the limited job introduced in Patch 7.56, a job being a character class and a limited one being a class that only works in certain content.

Before and after, for anyone on Switch 2

This is the quiet one, and it is a bill rather than a patch.

By its own notice on Switch 2 subscription fees, Square Enix ran a free subscription period on the Nintendo Switch 2 version, introduced to help ensure server stability. That period ends at 23:59 local time in each region on Monday 7 September, the night before downtime. From Tuesday 8 September, the 30-day free play window that came with a Starter or Complete Edition registration begins. Those are the two bundles the game is sold in. A subscription, which is the recurring fee you pay to keep playing, is required once that window has elapsed.

The same notice carries the part that decides what you pay. A Switch 2 subscription is separate from every other platform's, even for an existing subscriber. It is half price with an active subscription elsewhere, and that discount does not apply while a 30-day free play period is running on the other platform.

So the practical order runs like this. The free period ends the night of the seventh. The 30-day clock starts on the eighth. Thirty days from there lands in early October, which is where our maths says the first real charge arrives for anyone who registers then and does not pay before it elapses. Square Enix gives the first two dates, not the third. The free trial is unaffected and stays free, which the notice says outright.

Our take: what it means for players

We are going to defend the model and then complain about the paperwork.

A flat monthly subscription is the fairest arrangement in this genre, and it is worth saying so while the industry drifts the other way. Everyone pays the same. Everyone gets the same game. Nobody's character is stronger because their card is. Square Enix charging for Final Fantasy XIV the way it always has, rather than opening a shop that sells the difference, is why a patch note like this reads as a schedule instead of a price list.

The paperwork is where we would push. There are three dates in this chain. The free period ends at 23:59 the night before downtime. The 30-day clock starts the following day. Our maths puts the first real charge in early October. Only one of those three lands in most people's heads. Anyone who registered at launch on Switch 2 and has not paid yet will meet a charge they did not plan for, or find their subscription simply stops. Nobody is being tricked here. It is a sequence nobody wrote down for them, and a single line in the launcher would fix it.

The free trial is unaffected and stays free, which remains one of the more genuinely generous things any subscription game does.

What's next

The Moogle Treasure Trove opens the day after the patch, on Wednesday 9 September. The Trove is a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for playing old content, and this run is called the First Hunt for Astronomy.

By its own announcement, Square Enix calls it a special edition celebrating the upcoming release of Evercold, and it runs across two installments. The uolon horn needs an item awarded for minimog and ultimog challenges. The horn is available in the second hunt as well, so missing the first one is not fatal.

Beyond that, 7.56 is a closing patch rather than an opening one. The next thing on the horizon is Evercold itself, which Square Enix names only as an upcoming release. We carry it on the release tracker with no date at all, because it has not given one. Every date above is on the calendar.

FFXIV lists nine nights when the servers might go down, from 31 August

2026-09-03T00:00:00Z

Square Enix has published the overnight windows when Final Fantasy XIV may go down through the first half of September, in a notice aimed at players booking a wedding. There are nine of them, they cluster in threes, and every one runs from 9:00 p.m. Pacific to 4:00 a.m. the following morning.

Yes, a wedding. The Ceremony of Eternal Bonding is the game's in-game wedding, booked in advance for a fixed slot, which is why downtime is a scheduling problem rather than an inconvenience.

The nine windows

Nights	Window, Pacific
31 Aug into 1 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
1 into 2 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
2 into 3 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
7 into 8 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
8 into 9 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
9 into 10 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
14 into 15 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
15 into 16 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.
16 into 17 Sep	9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.

Square Enix marks all nine as subject to change, and says emergency maintenance can still happen outside them. The confirmed list, at the time of the notice, was empty.

Our take: what it means for players

Credit where it is due, because this is a publisher doing something most do not.

The value of this list is not the wedding advice. It is that the three clusters line up with the week of Patch 7.56 and the weeks either side of it. That turns a scheduling note into the clearest public statement of when the servers are expected to be touched.

The middle cluster, 7 to 10 September, brackets the patch itself. Square Enix's own notice dates Patch 7.56 to the start of downtime on 8 September, and a separate announcement opens the Moogle Treasure Trove, a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for playing old content, on the ninth. The first cluster covers the run-up. The third covers the week after, which on our reading is where the small follow-up fixes land once a patch has met live servers. Nothing here promises downtime on any given night, and Square Enix says emergency maintenance can happen outside the list.

Publishing a maintenance window before it is confirmed costs a studio nothing but the risk of being held to it. Square Enix has done it here for an in-game wedding, which is exactly the kind of feature a schedule usually ignores. That is respect for a player's time, and it is the standard the rest of the industry should be measured against.

The one rule worth carrying away is the 2018 change buried at the bottom of the notice. A ceremony booked to start after maintenance or an outage ends stays valid and needs no rescheduling. Only a reservation that overlaps confirmed maintenance has to move, and confirmed is a stricter word than possible. With nothing confirmed, the honest reading is that all nine nights are a warning rather than a plan.

What's next

Patch 7.56 arrives with the downtime on 8 September, and by the notice linked above it closes PvP Series 11, which is the numbered season of the player-versus-player reward track. Every dated item here sits on the calendar with the day we last checked it against the Lodestone, which is the game's own news site.