The next expansion for Final Fantasy XIV has finally been announced: it’s called Endwalker, and it’s due out this northern fall / southern spring.
Square Enix revealed the new expansion during today’s FFXIV Announcement Showcase, kicking off the show with a teaser trailer for Endwalker. The announcement comes a little later than initially planned—historically, expansions are usually announced around October or November during the Fan Fest cycle, but COVID-19 obviously got in the way. The expansion itself will come out a little later than the usual July/August window, but not too far behind.
Endwalker introduces two new jobs, one of which was unveiled during today’s stream. The Sage is a new healer with a focus on barrier-style healing, as opposed to White Mage-style “pure” healer, with the expansion making more of a distinction between the two styles. The existing Scholar class is another barrier healer, and the Astrologian will be redesigned as a pure healer, so there’ll be two of each.
The other new job is a melee DPS, to be revealed at the digital Fan Festival in May. (Yoshi-P did confirm that it’s not a sumo wrestler, in response to a comment from the stream chat.)
The overarching theme for Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is “a new dawn”. It will bring the 10-year saga of Hydaelyn and Zodiark to a close—emphasis on “End” in the English title and “Final” in its Japanese equivalent—but it won’t be the end of Final Fantasy XIV. Rather, the main plot of Endwalker will wrap up this particular storyline, before a new story begins with the 6.1 patch that will follow later.
The story will see the Warrior of Light depart on a journey to the moon, in the hopes of finally uncovering the secrets of Hydaelyn, Zodiark, and this ongoing war between the gods of light and dark. What will the Warrior of Light find on the moon? What of the Garlean Empire, Zenos, and the Ascians? What was the dying wish of the Ancients? These are some of the questions that the expansion will answer.
As expected, Endwalker will see an increase in level cap to level 90. There’ll be new areas on a similar scale as previous expansions, including Radz-at-Han, a bright, colourful town in Thavnair. Players will also get to visit Garlemald—though its far from the grand imperial capital we’ve caught glimpses of before, looking more like a devastated wasteland. There’s a new beast tribe in the Arkasodara tribe of the elepant-like Matanga, and a trip to the moon will bring new threats—including Final Fantasy X‘s Anima.
As usual, there’ll be a variety of new dungeons, including what looks like an apocalyptic scenario, some sort of biological horror setting, and a high-tech train station. There’ll also be a new raid series called Pandemonium; details will come later, but it seems Lahabrea is involved. The next alliance raid series will be a Final Fantasy XIV original (unlike the current Nier: Automata crossover), but again, details will come later.
On the PVP side of things, Endwalker will introduce new small-scale modes that remove role restrictions in the interests of a more casual experience with easier matchmaking. The aim is to make something that’s a bit more inviting to new players, and to that end, there’ll be a focus on rewards that go behind just more powerful gear.
Beyond battle-focused stuff, Endwalker will include a variety of new things—not least of which is the Island Sanctuary, an uninhabited island where players can engage in a bit of Harvest Moon-style farming and slow life. The Gold Saucer will get a major addition (on the scale of Mahjong) that’s to be announced, and there’ll be updates and new content for most of Final Fantasy XIV‘s other activities like role quests, crafting, housing, and so on.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is due out in northern fall / southern spring this year.