FFXIV Patch 7.4 added a glitched level 1 "nothing" antelope deer mob — naturally, it's being worshipped cult-style, and even the devs are in on it

Patch 7.4 of Square Enix's popular MMO Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) released earlier this week, bringing players across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation a continuation of the story of Dawntrail along with new raid content, a removal of class-based restrictions on glamour fashion, and more. Alongside all of this, though, the update also introduced a curious critter to Coerthas.

The Known Issues section of the patch notes mention "an issue with the Coerthas Western Highlands wherein certain enemies erroneously spawn," which drove many players to head to the Heavensward zone and investigate. Not long after, those "certain enemies" were determined to be strange level 1 versions of the area's Steinbock mobs — themselves a variant of the base game's antelope/deer creatures — that don't have names.

Sometimes only one spawns, and other times there's a whole cluster of them, but regardless, the community has taken to affectionately calling these mobs the "nothing doe" or something similar. And, y'know, worshipping them in cult-like groups. Because why not, right?

Across many of FFXIV's servers, players are heading to the spawn locations of these "nothing" mobs in the Coerthan Western Highlands (this thread shows exactly where they appear) and petting them, kneeling or sitting in their presence in reverence, and taking screenshots and group photos with the does. And comically, because they don't have names, emoting at them results in text like " gently pats the ." in the chat log.

Some are also being evil bastards and slaying the majestic creatures — they have 40 HP — with one player noting that "If you kill this thing people get really mad at you btw." Thankfully, they respawn like any other mob. Evidence of their divine powers, of course.

Of all the wonderful photos, memes, and fanart I've seen of the antelopes on social media, my absolute favorite is this clip where a group makes one hostile and ritualistically sacrifices a naked player to it in an attempt to "level it up." I've embedded it, and some other posts, below:

Even the developers at Square Enix are in on the meme, with the official English FFXIV account on X (Twitter) posting "Level 1 ." on Thursday morning. The French one, meanwhile, wrote "Little Lv 1 . got lost near the Falcon's Nest, have you seen it?" with a pleading face emoji.

As for the why regarding these things spawning, some speculate that some testing done for the development of Beastmaster — a new limited job coming to FFXIV with Patch 7.5 in 2026 that will be able to capture and call on monsters in battle — somehow slipped into Patch 7.4. This is just a rumor, though.

Funnily enough, this isn't the first time the Coerthas Western Highlands have been home to some bizarre mob spawning. Back in the Heavensward days, polar bears could also mysteriously spawn up high in the air and then stay stuck there, which players referred to as the "Skybear" phenomenon.

The way the community fell in love with Skybear is a lot like the way is revering the level 1 . right now, and it's always fun to see players come together in cute or comedic ways when silly things like this happen in MMOs.

Sadly, though, the "nothing" deer's time may soon be at an end, as there's emergency maintenance for FFXIV happening on December 18 (today) from 10:00 p.m. PT to December 19, 2:00 a.m. PT. I hope Square Enix lets the glitched antelope stay in the game a while, but it's possible they'll be patched out with this maintenance; go see them and revel in their grandeur while you can.

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FFXIV has quickly become one of my favorite games ever, and I'm not even that much of an MMO player. The story is (mostly) excellent and the game has tons to do, and right now, you can jump in for a huge 50% off.

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