FFXIV: The 2026 Valentiones Event is a Co-Op Cooking Mini-Game!
Posted on February 3, 2026 by Aywren
It’s been a while since the FFXIV team released a new instanced mini-game for a seasonal event. This year, Valentiones surprisingly got the mini-game treatment and “treat” is the right word all around!
I know some folks have been murmuring under their breath that over the past few years, FFXIV seasonal events have felt a little stale (aside from the summer cruise ship). While the stories are still there, they’re shorter, usually just as sweet, and all about talking to three NPCs scattered around the city. Not a whole lot of variation.
So, when I first saw that we had an instance for the Valentione’s event, I was surprised. Then I was a little grumbly because I have way too many alts that I need to run through this event. Sometimes short and sweet isn’t bad in that instance.
This year, we get a “cooking” mini-game where you can team up with other players to help build fantastically large cakes while dodging crazy mammets. You can do this solo, but even I (who much prefers solo) find it far more fun to do in a full team of four. Yep, even with randoms.
The Patisserie
The idea behind the mini-game is to build decorative cakes by transporting cake ingredients from the outside walls to the middle of the room, while staying out of line-of-sight of the crazed mammets. If you do get spotted, the mammet will attempt to chase and freeze you temporarily. However, you can use the whistle skill on your bar to temporarily stun them instead!
The ingredients you need are highlighted, so there’s no worry about making mistakes. However, do keep an eye on the ingredient list in your quest log. It will tell you how many more of a certain ingredient is needed so that you don’t accidentally pick up something someone else is already transporting.
Having done this many times, it seems the cakes selected are all random aside from the first and the last. So, you can’t just memorize the cake order if you do repeat it. The final cake is an anything-goes round, but the mammets are much more vicious and the timer is usually ticking down at that point, so you need to finish it fast!
Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be this fun. But it is, and I must laud them for a mini-game well done!
The Rewards
From the instance, you earn Valentione’s Day Chocolate which are the tokens you use to purchase the event’s items. This year, there’s two sets of (recolored) glam –with both a skirt and slacks variation – three orchestrion rolls, and several pieces of indoor furniture.
Syn and I ran the instance once for our own characters just the two of us. As two people, being totally new to the mini-game, we were able to finish 2 cakes and earned enough tokens to buy one of everything from the event vendor.
However, running it several times on alts, I chose to go with a matched party of 4 folks. Only once did we not get the highest rank, which rewards a whopping 150 chocolates.
This is way, way more than enough to get the glam, and tons of furniture for your place. I specifically like the rug for some reason – we don’t have enough rugs in the game, and this one is pretty cute!
I suggest hitting this event up early on so that you can do it while people are still queuing up for it. It’s far more fun with 4 people, even if you’re usually a loner!