To everyone else, this is week is just your average, normal work week with a spark of Fourth of July celebrations for Americans (can you hear the fireworks in your neighbor's backyard yet?...) But to Final Fantasy and MMO fans, Tuesday marks the official launch of Final Fantasy XIV's newest expansion, Shadowbringers. Thus, our weeks and months to come will be all Final Fantasy XIV, and I am pumped!
For those who preordered (which I did), you're already playing the newest additions to the game since Friday. Even if you are a new player and a ways off from touching Shadowbringers' story like myself, there's still a ton of fresh content to look forward.
1. New story, cities, and field areas to explore
Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers will challenge the player to go against the fantasy trope and take the lightly traveled road - embracing the dark and becoming the realm's Warrior of Darkness, for light is upsetting the natural balance of the world.
Adventurers will journey throughout Norvrandt, a haunting, yet gorgeous world filled with new locations such as the vibrant landmark developed around the Crystal Tower, the Crystarium, and an ancient city basked in green and forest life called Rak'tika, to name a few.
As with any area in FFXIV, explorable areas will be filled with monsters to slay, dungeons to raid, and a mix of NPCs and other players inhabiting this mysterious realm. To put this into perspective, FFXIV: A Realm Reborn is one of the most immersive and fleshed out worlds I have played in since Xenoblade Chronicles, so I expect the same, if not better, in the expansions, especially Shadowbringers.
2. New races - Viera and Hrothgar
FFXIV introduces two new gender-locked races: the beastly male Hrothgars with faces similar to lions and the female Viera, a human-like race with bunny ears.
Each comes with its own personalization drawbacks, such as not being able to choose the hairstyle for Hrothgars and most hat accessories not displaying for Vieras due to their bunny ears, but I would be lying if I said they didn't look cool as hell. I was content with my character as a Hyur for nearly 100 hours, but I immediately switched to Viera once I could to bring a bit more fantasy to my personal adventure. Plus, she just looks badass in Dragoon armor.
With that said, I may create a second character as a Hrothgar just so I can make him look like Beast from Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
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3. Class reworks, adjustments
Along with every class having an increased level cap to 80, every job is going to see a change ranging from minor to significant adjustments. For instance, the Dragoon class has had a few abilities removed and the DPS role abilities have been reworked. In essence, they made Dragoon somehow more simple to play and want DPS do more damage overall.
For a complete and updated list of all of the jobs in the game, visit this website.
4. New Gunbreaker and Dancer jobs added
With the new expansion comes two new jobs available to players who are level 60 and above: Gunbreaker and Dancer.
Gunbreaker is a tank class that wields the iconic gunblade to not only dish out damage and aggro, but to strategically use its magical properties for defensive buffs. To acquire Gunbreaker, you must complete the quest "The Makings of a Gunbreaker" in New Gridania.
If you rather focus on damage and buffs with some flair and sexy, the Dancer job will be up your alley. Dancer is a DPS role that dishes out ranged damage while having unique buffing abilities that can apply to the caster and their party. Head to the Lower Decks of Limsa Lominsa to accept the "Shall We Dance" quest and get on dancin'.
6. NPC allies for dungeons known as the Trust System
After reaching a quest objective to clear a dungeon in the main scenario of Shadowbringers, you'll be able to take on dungeons with the main characters of the story as AIs. Final Fantasy XIV already has a satisfying and robust singleplayer experience, and the Trust System adds simply to it. As of writing this, it's unclear if this mechanic is coming to or already available for previous raids, Either way, it's nice to have the option to go straight into a dungeon rather than wait 10+ minutes to be queued up.
This is just a tiny, tiny snack to the first breakfast, second breakfast, afternoon tea, luncheon, appetizer, supper, dessert, and cappuccino that is Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. For the full list of patch notes, click here.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers launches on July 2 for PS4 and PC. Hope to see you there!