The Final Fantasy XIV Team Gets In A Late April Fools Joke With Dawntrail’s Benchmark Test

Yesterday, Square Enix dropped the benchmark test for Final Fantasy XIV’s Dawntrail expansion. Of course, players of the MMORPG got busy determining if their rigs will be able to run the new expansion when it drops in two months or if they’ll have to use that time to get some upgrading done.

While most of us were busy checking out the numbers or just staring at our characters in the new Viper gear, some players decided to do a little experimenting. Specifically, they decided to roll back their computer’s clock and see if an easter egg from a previous benchmark test might have made a return. And, apparently, he did. Or. Well, in this case… they did.

As it turns out, loading up the benchmark test and then setting your system clock to April 1 will swap out the default character for an old friend – or his polygon-shaped clone. That’s right. If you want, you can have Hilidbrand or Brandihild as the star of the benchmark show. However, it seems the latter will require a bit more precision as folks indicate that Brandihild only shows up if the system clock is set for 2:00 PM (although some also indicate it just needs to be an even hour) on April 1.

In both cases, players need to turn off synchronization in Windows. Otherwise, your system will just try to do what it normally does to deal with time.

If you’d rather not do all that, you could just watch the video from Gamer Escape below.

On a related note. If you missed the recent Live Letter or would like to hear more about what was covered in it, a Duty Commenced stream will be taking place today at 3:00 Pacific time.