Square Enix apologizes for the mess up of the hairstyle competition winner in Final Fantasy 14 due to limitations such as polygon count.

Final Fantasy 14's patch 7.1 is now live. While it has many improvements, including improved toes, and a much needed fix to portraits for some fans, it also brings bad news to one.

Square Enix hosts competitions from time to time where players can submit designs for weapons and furnishing items. But the most relevant for the current situation is hairstyles. The chosen 'do was originally supposed to be "natural curls" by artist madqueenmomo.

The design is really pretty, and it's nice to see that some ground was covered in terms of hairstyles for FF14. If you didn't know, this is an issue that affects all games. Only a few titles have addressed it. Since I am both white and completely bald (making me a double-poor authority on this subject), I'm going to point you towards this great breakdown from Kinda Funny Games.

The version of "Doing the Wave" that is currently in the game is a far cry away from the original concept. It looks like these poor adventurers had a bucket of grease poured on their heads. This may be a good aesthetic, but they are not curly.

Madqueenmomo responded with a very understandable outrage on Bluesky. "What have they been doing to you? I don't mean to offend the team who have to make hair but I am just like...I've seen curly texture on highlander hair. We have a new graphical update. I even [made] [the curls] [be thinner] to work with non-poc character with curly hair but also hopefully easier for me to make."

She later apologized for her passionate response, saying: "It was supposed to be cute! I didn't expect it to look like this!" It was supposed be cute! I posted a picture of what it was supposed look like.

Madqueenmomo feels like she has let down her friends. "I made this for those who really need this type of hair," she adds.

Square Enix responded to the feedback received on the game forums. It read: "Thanks for all of your feedback on the new hairstyles that will be included in Patch 7.1. We apologize for the confusion we caused. We started working on this patch to implement 'Natural Curls,' from the winning entries in the Hairstyle Design Contest... However, as development progressed, we found that the light, delicate and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls couldn't be implemented perfectly due to limitations, such as the polygon counts.

"Therefore the final result is a wavy-bob hairstyle called 'Doing The Wave', which has been implemented in the game. We did include a statement in the patch notes to the effect that we used the winning entry in the development process. We are sorry that this has caused confusion and concern."

The post also stated that the team would "persevere in its efforts" to "look for alternative ways to implement this haircut."

For what it's really worth, I'm willing take that at face-value. While the latest graphics update for the game was impressive, there's a limit to how much paint you can put on an 11-year old MMO. The hair might look better now, but the underlying technology hasn't changed much if at all. Square is also to be criticized for this. There are many tricks that developers use to create certain effects. It would have been better to wait until the team had figured it out before releasing the game. Give the artist at least a heads-up so they don't get surprised.

Madqueenmomo responded by saying that she was happy the team "won’t give up trying to make curly-haired... I was worried they would stop after this," and drawing another beautiful piece of art to encourage them to not lose hope.

It's a great gesture to show Square Enix some grace, as they clearly made a mistake. I'm also glad to hear that Creative Studio 3 will not give up on adding more hairstyles. Even if you don't care about representation, making the game better is a win-win situation for everyone. More choices are always a good thing.