The Final Fantasy XIV Tokyo Fan Fest has come to a close, with a full Dawntrail expansion trailer, job, and playable race amongst the big reveals from the weekend.
During the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest keynote, director and producer Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida shared plenty of new details about what players can expect from the MMO in the next 12 months – and there was a whole lot on show to get through. Here’s everything we learned from the keynote (via Gematsu) and trailer about what’s to come.
Dawntrail Expansion Trailer and Release Details
The upcoming Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Dawntrail, got a full trailer reveal alongside a summer 2024 release window (that’s winter 2024 for us Southern Hemisphere folks). There’s no exact release date just yet beyond this window. However, Naoki Yoshida said an internal goal launch date is being kept under wraps for now due to the Endwalker expansion delays (“We don’t want that to happen again, even if it’s just a few weeks,” he said of the situation). The new trailer has a lot jam-packed into the over five-and-a-half-minute video, showcasing many of the other new features coming to the game on release.
Pictomancer Job
Pictomancer is the new Job coming to Final Fantasy XIV alongside Viper (which was revealed during the London Fan Fest), and is a magical ranged DPS job with a painterly flair. Wielding a paintbrush and a palette, the Pictomancer Job comes from Final Fantasy VI, expanding on the original abilities. Footage of the Pictomancer in action shows colourful abilities that involve painting (and summoning) landscapes, creatures and weapons, as well as the character summoning a Moogle with a flick of their brush. The Lalafell Krile will take up the role of Pictomancer, and the starting city for this particular Job is Gridania. Once Dawntrail launches, the Job will be immediately playable.
Playable Female Hrothgar Race
The Female Hrothgar revealed during the Final Fantasy XIV keynote are apparently the final race to be added to the game, according to Yoshi-P – although he did say the option to add more would be “up to” the players. Male Hrothgar were added as a playable race during the Shadowbringers expansion, but will soon be joined by the Female Hrothgar who are “identified by their lithe, muscular forms” and “predisposition for leadership.” Players won’t need to purchase Dawntrail to access the new race but will need the Shadowbringers expansion.
New Locations and Cities
The keynote and trailer revealed new locations coming to the game, including Heritage Found and Solution Nine. Solution nine is a futuristic place described as “a city of towering facades constructed by an entirely different civilisation than that of Tuliyollal,” while Heritage Found is a “region overflowing with lightning energies” where “thick thunderclouds blot out the sun, while streaks of purple Levin illuminate the land day and night.”
New Raids
A new Alliance Raid is coming to Final Fantasy XIV, called Echoes of Vana’diel, “in alliance with Final Fantasy XI.” Players will battle against the Shadow Lord, a familiar face for XI players – the Fan Fest keynote included some new concept art for the raid, as well. There’s also a new eight-player raid series called The Arcadion, which will take place in Solution Nine and launch a month after the Dawntrail expansion releases. There’s also set to be a new Ultimate Raid called Futures Rewritten, which sees players return to Eden, available during patch 7.1.
‘Expansive’ Lifestyle Content
Fans of Island Sanctuary can look forward to Cosmic Exploration, the “expansive” new lifestyle content coming to Final Fantasy XIV. Cosmic Exploration sees players work together to explore different stars, which will change after each patch. Based on what fans can tell, this will likely be similar to the Ishgardian Restoration.
Final Fantasy XVI Crossover
The Final Fantasy XIV x Final Fantasy XVI crossover questline titled ‘The Path Infernal’, first revealed at the London event, is coming in early April.
There were also a bunch of other smaller reveals during the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest, including a level cap increase (from 90 to 100), new field operations, and the new limited Beastmaster Job coming in “the latter part of 7.X.” There’s also set to be major graphical updates dropping alongside the Dawntrail release, including improvements to screen-wide aesthetics, and higher resolution texturing and shadows. The keynote also included the news that an Open Beta Test of the Xbox Series X|S version of the MMO would be beginning in February prior to an autumn 2024 launch.
What are you most excited about coming to Final Fantasy XIV this year? Let us know in the comments.
Lead Image Credit: Square Enix
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