Final Fantasy XIV’s annual North American Fan Festival showcase kicked off with the announcement of the MMO’s next expansion, Evercold. Following the reveal, Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida explained the upcoming adventure continues a new saga first started by the game’s previous expansion, Dawntrail. The ongoing story arc has officially been named the Godless Realms Saga.
Based on the teaser trailer, Evercold will see the Warrior of Light reunite with old allies to prevent an encroaching ice storm from consuming the Fourth, a new reflection ripe for exploration–so long as it’s not frozen over, that is. The upcoming expansion will include two new classes, one tank and one physical ranged, though neither class was revealed at the showcase. Though the team refrained from sharing too much about Evercold’s story, Yoshida explained next week’s patch 7.5 will set up the events to come.
Yoshida then dived into the various technical changes coming to the game, the most notable being a new battle system, a major UI overhaul, same-region player matching, and a pivot away from the current daily system in favor of a weekly system.
According to Yoshida, the new battle system, Evolved mode, emphasizes individuality in combat, the unique strengths each class brings, and is “slightly stronger” than the game’s current battle system, which is now being referred to as Reborn mode. While all of the game’s previous classes will be available to play in Reborn mode, all classes introduced in 8.0 and beyond will only be playable in Evolved mode. More details on what the key differences are between the two are reportedly being revealed at a Fan Festival panel later today.
Same-region matching was revealed to be coming with next week’s patch 7.5, and offers a massive reprieve to players eager to play with their friends on different data centers. Now, all players within a set region will be able to party up, significantly reducing previous barriers.
As for the upcoming UI change and pivot to a weekly system, Yoshida explained that the ultimate goal of these changes is to make Final Fantasy XIV‘s design more character-focused, and give players greater freedom. According to Yoshida, the team is eager to ensure the game works with a variety of schedules and meets players where they’re at, regardless of if they’re someone who logs on daily or can only play on weekends.
Final Fantasy XIV’s character customization is also getting several new upgrades, with the two biggest being a new color picker for eye, hair, and skin tone and the ability to toggle on or off specific parts of individual gear pieces. The team has also expanded eye and lip customization, improved eye shadow, and added the ability to layer face paint.
Final Fantasy XIV is also making substantial changes to gear progression at level cap and the armoury system, with the latter now allowing players to make it so their highest-geared class reflects its gear strength to all other classes they have learned and leveled up.
Yoshia also announced the team will be introducing seasons to the game, with every two patches now acting as one season, and is actively working on improving quest design. Changes to battle design include a third difficulty level for eight-person raids, alternate progression routes for 24-person raids, and new types of battle content that will be announced at a later date, with all of these aiming to bridge the divide between raid difficulties. We will continue to update this story as more details are revealed.
