Friday’s keynote during the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest was packed with so many announcements that it felt genuinely overwhelming, and as a big player myself, I felt slightly greedy watching it. It seems like, in addition to its next major expansion, FFXIV also has a lot of exciting stuff on the way, including some seriously long-awaited QoL changes and what’s quite frankly an absurd port.
If combing through that gigantic keynote presentation (which was genuinely two and a half hours long) isn’t your thing, I’ve got you. Here’s a list of everything important announced during today’s keynote.
Evercold lands in 2027
Everybody pretty much knew this was incoming, but FFXIV’s latest expansion was announced today. What we didn’t know, though, was that it’s called Evercold, and it’s landing in January 2027. The expansion was shown off with a flashy teaser trailer along with some very cool concept art (including a cat and “kitty town” that everyone in the crowd went wild for). Evercold is also kicking off the game’s first new saga in its 13-year lifespan, which is major.
Good news for people with jobs
Playing FFXIV can feel like a full-time job, so Square Enix is going to make it a lot easier to play the game if you have, you know, an actual job. Square Enix initially showed this off with a weird UI that looks like a battle pass, which elicited its fair share of groans from the crowd, but director Yoshi-P explained that this is actually a feature that will allow players to claim daily bonuses from roulettes weekly now. Yay!
Season system (kind of)
Thankfully, this equally concerning Fortnite-esque concept also doesn’t mean a new time-sensitive mechanic that’s going to waste more of your time. Yoshi-P announced that the game’s two-patch cycles are now going to be referred to as seasons to make things easier to understand. This doesn’t really mean anything significant is changing, but it’s worth noting so you’re not wondering why the hell your fellow Warriors of Light are throwing that word all over the place. Also, patches should come more frequently.
Huge news for QoL fans
Jobs will still have to be leveled separately, but now players have the ability to reflect their highest item level to other jobs. This is a huge deal and will allow players to switch between jobs a lot more easily.
Better character customization
FFXIV has a decent character creator, but it’s about to get a lot better. Yoshi-P showed off a new feature called “character action skins,” which basically seems like a fancy way of saying “emotes that work in different situations.” Also, the game is adding more character creation options with features like color pickers, eyeshadow, layered face paint, and toggleable components of gear pieces. This was shown off via a bunch of characters with multicolored hair, including the coolest Lalafell of all time:
Better battles
There’s now going to be a third medium difficulty for 8-person raids. Also, Yoshi-P vaguely teased changes to “progression routes for 24-person raids” to make them less time-consuming. This doesn’t necessarily mean making them shorter, though. We’ll learn more about both of these changes at upcoming Fan Fests.
Good riddance, data center boundaries!
Regional data center boundaries are GONE! If you’re not an FFXIV freak, this means that if you’re playing in a world listed under the American data center Crystal, for example, you will no longer be trapped only playing with other players from Crystal. Instead, you can play with anyone else playing on any North American data center, including in the party finder. This is a pretty big deal, especially to me, who signed up for a different data center than a bunch of my friends and has been trapped in a prison of my own creation ever since.
New jobs
New jobs are (predictably) heading to Evercold, including a tank and a physical ranged DPS, although we won’t hear more about them until later. The new limited job we heard about earlier, Beastmaster, is dropping in Patch 7.56, though.
New job system
For the game’s main 21 jobs, you’ll now be able to select between two new options, Reborn Mode and Evolved Mode, at any time. Reborn Mode is basically the same combat we have now. Evolved Mode is a rework of these actions, introducing different rotations that require fewer inputs. As someone who’s been using the same confusing Black Mage rotation for years, this seems like a pretty big change that I’m eager to test out, especially since it doesn’t require new gear or levels or anything. There’s one thing worth noting: new jobs added to the game going forward will only have Evolved mode.
Level cap increase (again)
The game’s max level is going up to 110!
I’ll have the usual, please
Also, as expected, the devs are introducing new dungeons, FATEs (although the team expects to focus on quality over quantity here), gear, foes, raids (including a very wild-looking ultimate starring returner Kefka), and PvP content.
Neon Genesis Evangelion raids are coming to FF14
FFXIV has had its fair share of collabs (including a really goofy one with Fall Guys) a while back. However, I don’t think I’ve been as excited for any of them as I am about its upcoming collab with Neon Genesis Evangelion, made up of a series of raids. Yoshi-P, who described himself as “a massive Evangelion otaku,” was clearly equally excited about this.
Bad news for PS4 players (not yet, though)
FFXIV is about to literally be too big to fit on a PS4. Yoshi-P warned PS4 players that the game’s size is growing, and although they haven’t quite hit that point yet, after Evercold drops and 8.3 happens, it’ll likely be time for an upgrade. “If you’re still playing on a PS4, you’ve got two years to save up for a PS5,” Yoshi-P joked.
Updated free trial
FFXIV having a free trial is a bit of a…bit, so much so that Yoshi-P even jokingly referenced the meme while on stage. However, its free trial is also an excellent way to get into the game without having to pay an absurd amount of money, and it’s now going to last significantly longer: all the way up to the game’s third expansion, Shadowbringers.
It’s patch time (almost)
We also got a look at the imminent patch schedule. Patch 7.5 is dropping on April 28. From there, we’ll hit Patch 7.51 on June 2, Patch 7.55 on July 28, and 7.56 on September 8.
Switch 2? Somehow???
FFXIV is somehow actually coming to the Switch 2. It’s heading to the console in August, although there will be a month-long early access period before that. However, it’s coming at a slightly disappointing price.
“More details to come in [insert location]”
The least exciting, though not entirely surprising, announcement we got was the announcement of more announcements in the future. Basically, a lot of features, like the game’s new jobs and more details about its week-based system, are set to be fully revealed during the other upcoming Fan Fests in Berlin and Tokyo. We can’t win ‘em all, I guess.
