FFXIV fans are reeling in horror after realising the true nature of one of its cutest new additions. Following the release of FFXIV patch 6.25, which introduces a new system called Variant and Criterion Dungeons to the critically acclaimed MMORPG, it didn’t take long for someone to spot the secretly sinister circumstances surrounding the Silkie mount that can be earned by exploring them.
The first Variant Dungeon to be added to Final Fantasy XIV, the Sil’dihn Subterrane sees between one and four players joining Ul’dahn royalty Nanamo Ul Namo on an adventure deep below the barren wasteland of the Thanalan desert. Along the way, you’ll encounter different enemies and boss fights depending upon which route you choose to take through the branching pathways. One of these is a fight against a large, hamster-like creature called Silkie.
Silkie sports a large pom atop its tail, and the first signs that something might be amiss come while you are fighting it – among its many deadly moves is one where the pom rests on the ground and swings the body of the rodent around in a circular arc. It seems like something that would require rather unusual strength to pull off. However, once fans began unlocking the Silkie mount earned by unlocking all survey records for the Sil’dihn Subterrane, the truth came out.
“Encountered in the depths of the Sil’dihn Subterrane, this arcane entity was the familiar of former sultana Nanasha Ul Nasha, who created it to keep the royal palace squeaky clean,” reads the in-game description for the mount. What comes next is most concerning, though; the tooltip notes that “Contrary to its appearance, the pom on the tail is the actual being rather than the mouselike creature.” Oh no.
Fans on the FFXIV Reddit were quick to express their distress, and the conversation took on such a widespread appeal that even the official FFXIV English Twitter account chimed in on the matter. This isn’t the first time that an adorable mount has led to a less than savoury discovery, however. The description for the Fatter Cat minion, one of the most popular available through the FFXIV online store as a real-money microtransaction, remarks that “It is very likely that the creature is either a voidsent using a bloated cat’s corpse as its corporeal vessel, or a deceased pet reanimated by one well-versed in the necromantic arts.”
The Silkie, then, marks just another notch on the ways Final Fantasy XIV is prepared to traumatise its own player base. If you’re after something less troublesome, the FFXIV Shiba mount recently became its most popular store item for a while – and, as far as we can tell, doesn’t have any sinister undertones other than being surprisingly (and pleasingly) large.
We’ve got all the details from FFXIV Live Letter 73, including feedback on how the patch 6.2 launch went for the multiplayer game. In addition, a surprise FFXIV Corgi minion announcement has been delighting players – hopefully it’s just a normal dog. An innocent dog. Meanwhile, one of the game’s most accomplished players recently beat some of the hardest FFXIV solo content on all the game’s entry-level classes. Now that’s terrifying.