The last Final Fantasy Festival of the year happened this past weekend in Tokyo and they sure sent 2014 off with a bang. Director Naoki Yoshida brought Christmas early to fans of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn with a ton of information regarding the upcoming patch and the game’s first expansion, Heavensward.
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During the festival, Yoshida talked in depth about patch 2.5 titled ‘Before the Fall’, and gave players a first hand look at some of the new content coming soon to FF XIV. Three new dungeons - The Keeper of the Lake, Amdapor Keep (Hard mode), Wanderer’s Palace (Hard mode) - were shown, as well as the finale to the Crystal Tower raid series, ominously called ‘World of Darkness’. The company released the first official logo to the patch.
Yoshida also shared details about the Manderville Gold Saucer event, which will be implemented in 2.5 and include mini-games like Triple Triad and, yes, Chocobo racing.
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But we’re here to look ahead. The upcoming Heavensward patch will introduce the icy northern fortress city of Ishgard and focus on “the 1,000 year-old Dragonsong War between Ishgard and Dravania and the players' role in the conflict and its potential end.” To accomplish that, the game is implementing a host of new toys, attributes, characters and what have you.
Players will have two new jobs to access: the Astrologian, a new healer job that cures party members of what ails them through the power of card divination; and Machinist, who deals death from a safe distance utilizing a number of turrets and other machinery.
The Au Ra, a dragon-esque race of humanoids, will also be introduced. Sounds like a good character to bring into the new raid challenge, Alexander which was briefly teased during Yoshida’s live stream event.
Details of the Collector’s Edition emerged, as well. The package will include: a dragon figurine, an art book (which are always worth it from Square), a disc featuring various videos and trailers and digital in-game items exclusive to the Collector’s Edition: a griffin flying mount, a helmet designed after FFIV’s dark knight Cecil, and a wind-up Kain minion.
All of this, however, pales in comparison to the announcement that legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu - who created music for many previous Final Fantasy titles - will be composing the theme for Heavensward.
Heavensward comes to A Realm Reborn next year.