Final Fantasy XIV‘s world tour of Fan Festival events has reached its final destination in Japan, and producer Naoki Yoshida truly pulled back the curtain on Evercold in the opening keynote.
The next expansion was announced at the Fan Fest in Anaheim in April, and tentatively aimed to release in January. However, despite the team’s best efforts, Yoshida personally made the call to defer launch by a couple weeks. Early access for Final Fantasy XIV‘s next era will begin on February 19, 2027, with the full proper release following on February 23. (Preorders, however, open next week on November 4.)
The third and final version of Evercold‘s trailer debuted, showing the second new class being added in this expansion. This is a physical ranged DPS class dubbed Zephyr, where players will fight with a crossbow and “an avian familiar” called a Nephele. Starting at level 90, the Zephyr’s origins trace back to Ilsabard, and their playstyle is very mobile and evasive.
Yoshida then provided a glimpse at the new characters and settings that will feature as players journey to the Fourth. Alongside Visna, the new character with the Zephyr class, is a familiar person named Lagertha who looks an awful lot like Ysayle from Heavensward. Meanwhile it appears Alphinaud and Estinien are our only fellow Scions making the journey with us, while Halmarut and Calyx still have roles to play.
Evercold‘s new areas revolve around the Realmships, massive airships that represent the elements and house the Fourth’s inhabitants, since the surface is covered in ice and inhabitable. Yoshida revealed the remaining Realmships—Sessrymnir, Realmship of Earth and Skidbladnir, Tealmship of Wind. The latter is where the Kettir cat-folk live, and Yoshida teased that their homeland upon the ship is “very, very, very” cute. In-universe, it’s been five hundred years since civilization took to the sky, and there’s been next to no contact between the Realmships, so each has evolved separately from there.
On the gameplay side, Yoshida ran through the changes coming to Final Fantasy XIV‘s progression systems. As announced at the Anaheim Fan Fest in April, the MMORPG is shifting its focus from daily to weekly progression, to grant players the freedom to find their own pace or to avoid “punishing” people for not playing daily.
Updated mockups of the new Adventurer Activity screen were shown (see above), with Yoshida remarking that the room behind the character on this screen may be made customizable down the line. While it may resemble some paid season pass system, Yoshida vehemently promised that the game is not instituting “seasons” in terms of paid season passes, but simply as a means of tracking progress over updates. Completing repeatable or weekly missions (up to and including work on your Disciples of the Land or Hand classes) grants points that fill the meter on-screen. Once the meter hits the appropriate landmarks, players will receive rewards like gear and the specific means to upgrade that gear.
2 types of gear can be optimized each season through this menu. The first is Seasonal gear, which is intended for everyday players. Players obtain this tier by playing and raising their activity level. The second level is Raid gear, the best variety in the game. Raid gear will take more effort and resources, such as upgrades from new 8-player Savage-difficulty raids, but they offer customizable secondary abilities. Those who manage to fully optimize a complete, matching set will gain further enhancements.
Speaking of customization, Yoshida mentioned that the Evercold benchmark software will drop soon for PC players to test their machines and verify their settings. The built-in character creation tool will allow experimentation with the new appearance customizations tools detailed at Anaheim.
In one of the Keynote’s more shocking revelations, Yoshida announced a radical reconfiguration of the 24-player Alliance Raids. These specific trials will be split in half into separate duties, reducing how demanding they can be upon players’s time. Once a player has beaten the raid at least once, they can then choose to queue up for only their desired half if they’re seeking something specific. Plus, Yoshida pledged that “the days of casting lots [for loot items] over and over, are over.”
Final Fantasy XIV will receive new battle content called the Gauntlet of Power, where parties do battle without level sync forcing players to go up or down to match the others. Instead, Square Enix’s new Auto Content Balancing system will adjust the difficulty of encounters to each players’ level, allowing them to participate at their level with all their hard-earned skills. The Gauntlet of Power is a dungeon boss rush mode, with up to 5 bosses challenged in secession. Opponents are picked based on the party’s individual progresses—meaning Final Fantasy XIV players need not fear having an upcoming boss being spoiled.
Those who use Final Fantasy XIV‘s Duty Support feature often may be relieved to learn that the feature will now fill gaps in your party accordingly. Players can bring a friend or two in with them, and the computer will fill the remaining party slots. Other major updates planned for after Evercold‘s launch include a Hall of the Novice for PvP, overhauls to housing, and the long-awaited adjustment for companion chcocobs.
Yoshida’s keystream culminated with further teases for Evercold‘s big raid series. The first, a crossover with Final Fantasy VII called “Beyond the Lifestream,” will get its first installment in patch 8.0.1, and Yoshida showed off some original art by Tetsuya Nomura featuring Cloud, Sephiroth, and Final Fantasy XIV‘s poster boy Warrior of Light.
The other raid series, Evangelion: Ghosts of Desire raid series kicks off in patch 8.1. Luckily this time Yoshida was able to show some actual footage, albeit it spliced to look and sound like an episode preview, narrated by Neon Genesis Evangelion‘s Misato. It’s still surreal to consider the two properties crossing over in this way, but nonetheless, the next era is beginning to really shape up for Square Enix’s long-running MMORPG
(Final Fantasy XIV is available now on all major gaming platforms. Evercold, the game’s next expansion pack, will release on February 23, 2027, with early access commencing February 19.)
