

Many will recognise the Viera from Final Fantasy 12, bunny girls boasting tall frames, even taller ears and a surprisingly authoritative elegance. Square Enix hasn’t ruled out further options coming in the future, but it seems unlikely given the resources required. Shadowbringers comes with two new races, both of which are gender-locked at launch.

Related: E3 2019 latest news and announcements FF14 has already produced some stunning narrative moments, and I hope that streak continues here. It was unusually haunting, but also made me all the more excited for what’s to come. So, it didn’t have the impact it could have, with each character repeating the same recycled line of dialogue. I was simply asked to choose a character and was thrust into this world. It’s worth noting I was playing an in-progress build of Shadowbringers without functional NPCs, dialogue or any narrative context.

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Acting as a major hub for Shadowbringers, here you’ll find quests, merchants and narrative branches to embark on in the full expansion. Other highlights are a colossal forest where trees are decorated with fluorescent purple leaves, debris falling upon you when passing by. Locales include a whimsical cathedral surrounded by a lake that submerges ample ruins, hiding a past I expect players will uncover. It remains liberating, and I spent an embarrassing amount of time simply taking everything in. With the press of a button a mount will ascend into the sky, allowing you to soar upward, underwater pretty much wherever you want. Much like Heavensward and Stormblood before it, many zones welcome verticality. Its aura is almost ethereal, so angelic that it’s clear something sinister awaits beneath the surface. It’s utterly gorgeous, awash with a spectrum of colours and paranormal fauna that makes it feel alive. Personally, I’m hyped to reach for my inner darkness and kick some butt. I adore the subverted expectations this expansion brings with it, having you banish light when you’d usually embrace such things to win the day. As expected, you’re just the warrior this otherworldly place needs to make things right. Drowned in light, this strange new land needs The Warrior of Darkness to banish evil and restore darkness to the land. Shadowbringers pulls players away from the safety of Eorzea, planting them in a new world known as The First. Whether it’s the new races, quests or settings, I can see fans taking to this like Chocobos to Gysahl Greens. While it’s difficult to judge an expansion from a virtual slice of its offerings, I was hugely impressed by some of the new additions coming to FF14 as part of Shadowbringers. Now we come to Shadowbringers, a brand-new expansion that boasts oodles of new content, gameplay changes and more. Heavensward and Stormblood, the first two expansions, only made things better. A Realm Reborn reimagined the base game as a competent foundation with wondrous endgame content, drawing in millions of players from across the world. Blizzard had scorched earth, and there was no turning back.įast forward to 2019, and Final Fantasy 14 is one of the biggest MMORPGs in the world, arguably overcoming World of Warcraft in the public consciousness with the comeback of a lifetime. World of Warcraft transformed the genre, altering mechanics that would never be the same again. Square Enix delivered the most disastrous MMORPG experience of all time, opting to stew in its own archaic juices instead of rightfully taking influence from a world that had long moved on. I might have still been in secondary school at the time, but alas, I was one of the cool kids and remember when the original Final Fantasy 14 crashed and burned.
