Endwalker's Low-Poly Grapes

About

Endwalker's Low-Poly Grapes refer to low-poly models used for the in-game grapes in the Labyrinthos area for the Final Fantasy XIV expansion Endwalker, which was released on November 19th, 2021. While the model was eventually upgraded to a higher poly version in patch 6.01, the old low-poly models received a large amount of attention from fans and in memes around late 2021.

Origin

In the Endwalker expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, low-res grapes first appear in a cutscene on Labyrinthos (shown below).

Spread

On December 4th, 2021, Twitter user @LowPolly,^[2] a gimmick account devoted to tweeting low-polygon foods in video games, posted a screenshot of the grapes, gaining over 21,000 retweets and 117,000 likes (shown below, left). In response, users began making memes about the grapes. For example, user @rubenorosa1^[3] posted a photoshop of the grapes as a character in the game, gaining over 2,000 retweets and 5,800 likes (shown below, right).

On December 20th, 2021, Endwalker received Patch 6.01, upgrading the poly count for the grapes, making them more round and in line with the game's graphical fidelity. After the upgrade, fans made memes ironically mourning the loss of the grapes.

For example, Twitter user @Haurchefent^[4] posted a Meme Heaven image with the grapes, gaining over 590 retweets and 2,800 likes (shown below, left). User @HarryAlisavarkis^[5] posted a tweet showing the polygonal grapes rotating, gaining over 3,000 retweets and 12,000 likes (shown below, right).

On December 21st, 2021, the official Final Fantasy XIV Twitter account^[1] referenced the grapes, tweeting "We will miss you, grapes. You were truly remarkable" (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References