Game News
The last fan festival for Final Fantasy 14 wrapped up in Frankfurt, Germany over the weekend. It was here that fans like myself were treated to the final bit of information concerning Final Fantasy 14’s Upcoming expansion. You can find more depth coverage in this article from Nova Crystallis. There is a lot of information to cover from all three fan fests so buckle up. Stormblood is coming and here are some of the details for Final Fantasy 14’s upcoming expansion.
Two New Jobs Coming In Stormblood
The first job announcement came from the Tokyo Fan Fest where they announced Red Mage.
Clad in it’s customary garb that would look familiar to any Final Fantasy fan dressed in a red coat, feathered hat and rapier, the crowd went wild when it appeared on screen.
The battle design has Red Mage as a ranged magic dps. Yoshi admitted that they had to change how the job worked so it could fit into Final Fantasy 14 but we do know that it will be able to attack from melee and further away in battle. Red Mages can usually cast Black, White and Red magic so we will need to see how it plays out in Final Fantasy 14.
Despite a quickly deleted after the Japan Fan Fest that hinted at only two jobs being announced for the expansion. We got our confirmation Saturday as Yoshi P delivered the opening key note. Samurai, a melee dps, was going to be the second job for the expansion and it was to be the last. Red Mage and Samurai will be available in the starting ARR areas for players at level 50. While it is not stated implicitly, players will probably need to own the new expansion in order to access these jobs.
There are concerns over the incoming que times in the aftermath of adding the Ninja job mid expansion in 2.xx but we will have to wait and see. See the Samurai job in action here and the Red Mage job trailer here.
New Locales and Story Hints
With Isgard and Heavensward behind us, players knew that we would be traveling to Ala Migho to liberate the peoples there. At the Germany Fan Fest, Yoshi and the team had a surprise for us. We would also be traveling to Orthard to help liberate Doma which expands the map exponentially. Here area few of the areas we will see.
We will also travel to the new player city named Kugane. In the lore, it is primarily in isolation and does not deal with many outsiders so how all the warriors of light manage to get a ticket in will be worth discovering. This city is a port town so that further highlights the swimming and diving aspects revealed in the previous fan fests. I wouldn’t be surprised if ships and pirates play an active role as well.
You can find the video showcasing more shots here.
Last expansion we were introduced to the new playable race the Au’Ra. Despite their introduction we still did not see too many NPCs of them and now we now why. The Au’Ri tribes originated from Orthard and the Azim Steppe area so we will get to know the nomadic tribes of this race come the expansion.
The next area was Yanxia but Yoshi didn’t state too many lore details about this region except for this is where Doma is located. As far as we know, Doma was obliterated when the Garleans conquered the region so I am curious to see what we will be fighting over.
New Beast Tribes and Primals
Two seems to be the magic number as it seems we are only getting two beast tribes so far this expansion. The new tribes are the Kojin, who reside in The Red Sea, and the Ananta located near Ala Migho. The trailer shows us an under sea village so maybe that was theirs? Time will tell.
Each beast tribe has a primal they worship so this one is no different. Meet Susano, The Lord of Revel and Lakshmi, Lady of Bliss. While Lakshmi is native to the Final Fantasy series, Susano is an original Primal like Ravana was in Heavensward. I can’t wait to see their encounters.
Dungeon Preview and Raid Preview
Yoshi shared some screen shots and a video of the new and unnamed dungeon. All he said was that it looks like a ship grave yard and left it at that. Yoshi is so bad with “hints” so that is probably what it is. Yoshi states there are more dungeons to come and to “please look forward to it”. You can see a preview for the dungeon here.
Yoshi also informed us about the new 8 main raid called The Bend of Time, Omega. This story would involve an older character named Nero from the Crystal Tower raids in the 2.xx series. SE has responded to the criticism of the Alexander raids not being tied to the MSQ with this raid so hopefully it will recreate the magic of the Coils of Bahamut.
The final type of content we were introduced to was the 24 man raid currently titled Return to Ivalice. The Final Fantasy 14 team has consulted the expertise of Final Fantasy 12 director, Yasumi Matsuno to direct and write the story. This is the first time someone outside the Final Fantasy 14 team has directed content so this should infuse a new style to the game when released.
New Residential Area
The expansion will bring players its fourth residential district. Instead the housing is in an Orthard area called Shirogane. Yoshi also had another surprise in store for housing enthusiasts. Not only would the item limit for housing items be increased but full FCs will be able to move their whole company without sacrificing everything they worked on. The housing will not be available at launch to give players a chance to return and explore the rest of the game.
Other Quality Of Life Changes
The new expansion also brings about a few other quality of life changes. The first change will be the introduction of swimming. All mounts that fly will be able to swim and dive in the expansion. The team informs us that while they do not plan to create swimming in all the areas they do plan to implement in some of the 2.0 areas.
Players were also informed that as of Stormblood they will be dropping all PS3 support. That means that once the game updates players who use the older platform will not be able to access the game at all. There is an upgrade campaign free to current PS3 players to move to PS4 that will continue through 2017. The team is also encouraging PC players to upgrade their hardware to 64 bit in order to accommodate the upcoming expansion.
The last change announced was the increase in inventory space. The team informed players that this increase will probably occur in 2 parts throughout the expansions. Since it was a massive overhaul to the system they do not want to risk crashing the server by implementing it all at once.
That About Wraps it Up
There will be more information to satiate players in the coming months until the expansion. We still have 2 small patches before we explore the rest of Eorzea but the hype in the air is real. The game is set to release on June 20th, 2017 with early access starting on June 13th, 2017. If you’re curious about the world or waiting to rejoin now is a great time to get lost in Eorzea.
Have you played Final Fantasy 14? Does this news peak your interest? Have you played an MMORPG before and how was it different? Let us know in the comments below.
