Final Fantasy XIV: the Beast Maze, the tamer's solo content — 10 to 15 beasts, 8 beast classes, and a ranking that doesn't open on September 8

On Monday, August 17, 2026, Square Enix posted on the French Lodestone the summary of its 93rd Live Letter from the Producer, broadcast on July 25 from the Fan Festival in Berlin. The site timestamps the publication at 8 a.m. UTC, or 10 a.m. in Paris — the conversion is ours. This document does what no French page had done before: it names things. The trainer's solo content is called the Dédale bestial.

We wrote on August 11, in our guide to preparing for the trainer, that "none of the terms presented in Berlin yet had an official French wording." That was true that day; it no longer is. The prerequisites for accessing the job and the limited job system are covered there; this one deals with the content where the trainer is really played.

Update 7.56 is dated Tuesday, September 8, 2026 — the start of maintenance — according to the French announcement that closes out the Series 11 PvP season, and no time window has been published. As of September 1, the French patch notes had not been released, and the official French 7.5 website still presents the trainer without ever writing "Dédale bestial": the August 17 summary remains the only French page to give this name.

The glossary that Square Enix finally published in French

The summary exists in both French and English, and it comes accompanied by the French slides from the broadcast. The three sources side by side give us the correspondence that had been missing since July.

The most useful slide is the one showing the beast classes: it lists all eight classes and their eight Assimilation actions, whereas the summary text mentions only three.

Two caveats. The screenshot of the Bestiaire de dresseur published on the French site for patch 7.5 shows, for the Coeurl, a Fauve class and a Cuir de fauve Assimilation, whereas the slide reads Thériens and Cuir de thérien — two official French documents for the same class, with the Japanese in-game screen shown on another slide raising doubt about its identity. The patch notes will settle it. More prosaically: the summary writes “équipements de dressage” and then “équipement de bête” for what the English names twice as beast gear, while there also exists a separate équipement de dresseur, the player's own gear.

Level 30, ten to fifteen beasts, and no free healing

The Beast Labyrinth is “content to be done exclusively solo, accessible after progressing through the level 30 job quest”. It is a game board, and that's where everything progresses: “you and your beasts will be able to gain experience”.

The team format changes entirely. In battles, the trainer only fields three beasts; for a run through the Labyrinth, you must bring 10 to 15. There, they have their own hit points, and “if these drop to zero, they will no longer be able to fight”. Above all: “there is no automatic healing within the Beast Labyrinth”. Each beast there also has its own rank and five attributes — Strength, Intelligence, Physical Resistance, Magic Resistance, and Vitality — which only matter inside the Labyrinth. Before entering, you can check “the enemies and boss weaknesses” of the chosen level; a button for automatically selecting a team is planned — the French summary gives it no name, while the English calls it Recommended Team.

The four board spaces and the beast token economy

Three Labyrinth items are named, working "similarly to the magic pottery in the bottomless dungeons": the Beast Potion restores hit points, the Sands of Time allow you to restart a lost battle from the beginning, the Tome of Invulnerability grants immunity to physical attacks. Training gear provides passive effects; the only published example is the ring of substitution, which has your beast fall in your place when you are knocked out and revives you.

The food items depend on the class: "insectoids have little appetite, while therians have more appetite", with some being reserved for specific classes. At the end of the match, the results screen gives a score and awards beast essences.

Instinct combos: four affinities, and a French tip that the slide contradicts

The instinct techniques consume a gauge that both the trainer and their beast each have. When both use one within a seven-second window, an instinct combo adds extra damage. The trainer has four, the beasts only one. Later on, Energy Boost fills the trainer's gauge and Encouragement fills the beast's, allowing you to chain "three, or even four consecutive instinct combos". First snag, within the source itself: the French text writes "its PT gauge" for Assault, then "the TP Gauge" further on, whereas the English text writes TP gauge throughout. We won't settle the matter.

Second snag, considerably more problematic, because it concerns the advice given to beginners. The French text says: "simply watch the color of your trainer's instinct technique, then use the beast's instinct technique of the same color". The French slide says the opposite: "chaining instinct techniques in the order of the affinities deals more damage", and its dial rotates the four affinities — Arcane, Aerial, Ferocious and Robust — into one another. The English summary matches the slide: it advises chaining clockwise, color after color, and specifies that the trainer has all four affinities while a beast only carries one. In other words, the French summary's sentence is the only one of the three sources to recommend the matching color.

Third discrepancy, a mechanical one. The French text has enemies immobilized by a slime's Barrage then chained into a pugilist's Repressive Wave; the English text tells the same demonstration in reverse order, with the Assimilation taken from the pugilist first. It's this latter order that holds up, since Assimilation actions "will be kept even if you switch beasts". This reading is our own.

Beast Trail, rank 25, and a ranking that does not open on September 8

Two reassuring points. Rank 25, the maximum rank for a beast, "will be achievable by regularly participating in the Beast Labyrinth and will not require completing difficult content"; it changes its appearance, "also visible outside the Beast Labyrinth". And the higher difficulty mode, the beast trail, unlocked "after completing all stages", offers "three tiers: I, II and III" where "maximum HP and damage dealt by enemies increase", without being tuned like savage or ultimate content.

Then there's the ranking, and this is where you need to pay attention. The French text of the summary states that "season 1 will last two weeks, from update 7.56 to update 7.58". The French slide, published in the same post, states the opposite: "the 1st ranking period will begin 2 weeks after update 7.56 and will end with update 7.58". The English summary says the same thing as the slide. Two sources out of three agree, and they are the two most precise: don't expect a ranking on September 8, but a fortnight later. No date has been published for 7.58, so no end date either. The ranking is measured by "scores obtained in the game mode: beast trail III", and subsequent periods "will coincide with future updates". The reward for the top of the leaderboard, shown right after on screen, is a mount: a crystal golem in rainbow colors.

In practice

What is dated: 7.56, on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, with no set time. What is not: 7.58, and therefore the end of the first ranking period, whose start falls two weeks after 7.56. As for preparation, it comes down to one line: the Labyrinth opens at level 30, requires 10 to 15 beasts, and heals no one for free. Fifteen average beasts covering several classes are therefore better than three optimized beasts, since boss weaknesses can be checked before entry and fallen beasts do not get back up on their own.