A new Final Fantasy 14 dance was mocapped by a dev team member

Final Fantasy 14’s dances are beloved by players, which makes sense, because the game has a lot of downtime. This means there are many opportunities for party members to pop an emote and, in doing so, come to appreciate the careful work put into these dances.

Dances in Final Fantasy 14 are emotes and can be unlocked through quests, buying with in-game currency, as well as buying with real money in a shop. Players can be seen dancing around in towns, between phase transitions in bosses, and just about anywhere it’s safe to AFK and get your groove on.

The game’s latest patch, 5.3, added several new dances to the game. There’s the “Bee’s Knees” dance that features a hip-swaying step movement. There’s the “Lalihop,” which uses waving, crouching, and kicking. For the annual summer event, the Moonfire Faire, Square Enix added a hula-like dance called the “Flame Dance.”

“There are two general paths we may take when creating a new dance emote; one of which is having one of our animators create a storyboard for the dance and then having the dance performed by a mocap actor,” Final Fantasy 14’s producer and director Naoki Yoshida said in an email with Polygon. “The Bee’s Knees dance would fall into this category.”

The Bee’s Knees dance is by far the most popular of the three. There are players doing the Bee’s Knees just about everywhere you look. It’s become my go-to dance as well.

“Another good example is the Moonfire Faire dance. That dance was actually created by one of the guys on our quest team, who was really knowledgeable about that particular type of dance, so much so that he stepped in as the mocap actor for it,” said Yoshida. “There are a lot of hidden talents within the FFXIV team!”

With fun customization and fashions and an upgraded free trial, now is still a great time to start Final Fantasy 14.