During Square Enix’s Announcement Showcase, Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida unveiled the game’s fourth expansion. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker concludes the epic saga with Zodiark and Hydaelyn, taking players to new locations like the moon, raising the level cap from 80 to 90, and introducing brand new dungeons, raids, and more unique content. The Announcement Showcase opened with a teaser trailer, showing the Warrior of Light as a paladin fighting alongside Alphinaud and Alisaie during what looks like the end of the world.
Yoshida then announced Endwalker’s release window of fall 2021. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the team had to delay their work between patch 5.2 and 5.3 by around three months. All previous expansions had released around summertime, but Endwalker will unfortunately release later on due to the delays.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker will also introduce two new jobs:Â one healer and one melee DPS. For now, Yoshida only gave details on Sage, the healer job. Sage will act as a barrier healer, like Scholar. The devs plan on reworking Astrologian to be a pure healer like white mage, though they didn’t give too many details about this just yet. The Sage uses four sword-like weapons called Nouliths. They use these Nouliths to deal damage and send barrier heals to other party members.
During the main scenario quests, players will finally head to Thavnair, a location heavily mentioned throughout the story over the years. The colorful Radz-at-Han will be the new hub location, similar to Eulmore at level 80. Warriors of Light will also head to Garlemald, though the empire looks rather damaged and is not in the best shape. Players will find out why as they play through the story.
Yoshida also announced tons of other Endwalker content, like the new Ascian-focused alliance raid, small-scale PvP, an Island Sanctuary where players can grow crops and raise animals, a surprise update to the Gold Saucer (Blitzball? Snowboarding?), and a new housing district in Ishgard following the Ishgardian Restoration for crafters and gatherers.
Players can also expect a “downscaling” for stats with the release of 6.0. Values for battle stats, like strength and dexterity, and player and enemy HP, will downscale to lower overall damage numbers. Yoshida stressed that players will not become weaker, but will rather merely see lower numbers across the board. With this change, the devs are also removing belts as equipment. Any equipped belts at the launch of 6.0 will go directly to the Calamity Salvager NPCs in the starter towns.
Finally, Yoshida introduced the Data Center Travel system, similar to the World Visit system currently in-game. Players will be able to travel across data centers to visit anyone on any server, joining up for dungeons, taking screenshots together, buying items from their server’s market board, and more. This should help bring Final Fantasy XIV even closer to a server-free experience.
Square Enix will have more Endwalker announcements during their free online Fan Festival scheduled for May 15 and 16.
