Over in Las Vegas, the fantasy is coming to life with the current FF14 Fan Festival happening. The convention has only just begun, but the developers of the wildly popular MMORPG have already dropped some major news for players and fans. With a whole slew of new content, some updates, and a few extras added in, it was bound to gain some hype.
The first three things that the developers came out with was the new expansion pack for Final Fantasy XIV Online, titled Shadowbringers:
There’s a lot to take in here with the trailer aside from its size. Shadowbringers is the third expansion of the MMORPG, and continues the story through. Players have already rescued Ala Mhigo and Doma in the Stormblood expansion, and have to go on to fight the evil Garlean Empire. The trailer shows the protagonist, The Guardian of Light, changing sides to turn the tides of the fight. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions about this character that will only be revealed when the expansion comes out in early Summer 2019.
The second thing revealed in this trailer are two new classes. One is confirmed to be the upcoming Blue Mage class:
Now, the Blue Mage is not necessarily a new thing to most players. The class has been around since Final Fantasy V, and is an adaptive class that requires players to learn their attacks from creatures out in the field. The Blue Mage class will be released in the 4.5 patch, much earlier than the Shadowbringers patch coming later.
The third thing to come from the Shadowbringers trailer is either a new NPC or a tease for a new job:
This character is shown to be holding a half gun half blade weapon, a gunblade if you will, that is similar to that of the protagonist Squall from Final Fantasy VIII. Whether or not this will be a teased gunblade wielding class or job for an update down the line, or just an introduction to a new character has yet to be confirmed.
This was all just from the upcoming Shadowbringers expansion pack, but the developers announced a plethora of smaller things that will eventually add up and create a more enticing experience for FFXIV Online players, including a call for the Viera race to be added.
The Vierra race has been around for some time in the Final Fantasy universe, and players have been requesting that they be a playable race in the MMORPG. And while Noaki Yoshida, the producer, never specified what race was going to be added to the game, he did happen to be wearing a tee-shirt that hinted heavily at it, so fans are very hopeful for the Viera race being the ones to be added.
The other two announcements were that New Game Plus has finally been added! This will allow players to start a new game with all their previous skills and equipment without having to make a new character. They will be able to play through the main quests and job quests again at higher level.
And, if players wanted to play with a friend who might be on a different server, but still within your data center, it is now possible to travel between worlds to play together. Two new data centers for North America and Europe have also been added, so banding together will be easier.
More information about Shadowbringers and the updates will be revealed through the rest of the weekend at Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival. To keep up with all the news, cosplays, and events, check out the conventions twitch account for more.