In honor of the upcoming release of Final Fantasy 14’s Island Sanctuary, the developers teamed up with a London farm to broadcast a week-long livestream featuring real animals, and the community immediately became obsessed with a rooster they identified as Zenos in bird shape.
The Official Final Fantasy 14 Twitch Account (opens in a new tab) is currently in the midst of a week-long stream leading up to the release of patch 6.2 and Island Sanctuary on August 23. The streams will feature a variety of animals over the course of the week, but the opening stage focuses on a chicken coop, complete with a gold and black rooster that the community has collectively decided looks like Zenos.
Absolutely lost in ffxiv Farm Livestream where everyone has decided this bird is Zenos pic.twitter.com/OqjZu2yrIUAugust 15, 2022
The Zenos rooster became an immediate obsession, worthy of its namesake. We’re talking full blown fan art here.
Lyse trying to sleep while Zenos keeps fighting #FFXIV #FFXIVStream #Chicken #MogchuteFarm #Zenos #Lyse #ZenosChicken #LyseChicken pic.twitter.com/UEAUzSazdXAugust 15, 2022
this is the first thing I draw after a great artblock huh #FFXIV #FFXIVART #Zenos #ZENOSTHEROOSTER pic.twitter.com/a0D1epesGiAugust 16, 2022
Memes have tested our reflexes so thoroughly that the farm has officially renamed the bird Zenos the Rooster.
IT’S OFFICIAL! Everyone meet Zenos the Rooster! Zenos will really appreciate any donation towards him: https://t.co/gtLt111tvq#[email protected]_XIV_EN pic.twitter.com/F1mq1ZRhZrAugust 16, 2022
Mudchute Farm (opens in a new tab) is a UK charity dedicated to caring for the environment, so ultimately all of these memes support a good cause. The Twitch stream is still focused on chickens at the time of posting, and as I write this, Zenos is sitting high up looking at all the lesser birds, as he should.
In addition to previewing the upcoming patch content, FF14 producer Naoki Yoshida has also been talking about what to expect from the next major story stage in recent interviews. It looks like this time we’ll see the story seeds for the next big expansion much later than usual.
Maybe the best farming games and the best MMORPGs they are one and the same, after all.
