Ultimate raids are the most challenging fights of Final Fantasy XIV. Every year, it’s an event celebrated by the community, where the best teams are competing in a World First race to complete those in the shortest time possible.
Historically, some Ultimate raids have taken over two whole months to be cleared. Last year, Dragonsong’s Reprise was cleared in six days.
It could take players less time to clear Omega Protocol, the latest Ultimate raid that was released with Patch 6.31 earlier this week. A critical leak has surfaced earlier today, showcasing all mechanics and the ending cutscene of the boss’ fifth and last phase.
Related: Final Fantasy XIV’s Omega Protocol Ultimate Race to World First live tracker
The leak is a critical issue for Square Enix. It’ll considerably speed up the raid’s completion since players won’t have to figure out every mechanic themselves: instead, they can watch the full video and set up positioning and shotcalls.
Square Enix has a zero-tolerance policy on leaks. It already took legal action against a leaker who revealed model data from the previous Ultimate raid, Dragonsong’s Reprise, in May 2022.
“Such leaks are utterly unacceptable, for they not only undermine the efforts of the development and operation teams, but also take away from our players’ enjoyment,” it wrote at the time.
This leak is much worse, however. There’s no doubt the developer will look for the culprit and take action.
If this video hadn’t leaked, it would have taken teams a considerable amount of time to complete the last phase of Omega. The fight is incredibly challenging because it features numerous attacks where players don’t have any margin for error. It also includes several tight “DPS checks”, which are intervals of time where players must deal a certain amount of damage to succeed.
The most challenging part of the raid, however, is the lack of checkpoints. While most Ultimate raids included one, the Omega boss has none, which means players must begin the fight from the start when they die —even in the fifth phase. It corresponds to a roughly 10-minute fight where players cannot make mistakes just to reach the furthest point they reached before.
The last phase’s leak shows several mechanics players eagerly waited to see, such as the classic Omega Starboard and Larboard attack. Players must fight a combination of the three previous forms they defeated, and the phase still looks challenging to clear.
