Final Fantasy XIV‘s update trailers continue to surprise and impress me. To call these ‘patches’ sells them brief. Every few months in-between main expansions, the revived and extremely profitable story-driven MMO receives a very good slab of episodic content material persevering with each the principle plot arc, in addition to increasing outwards into numerous side-stories and crossover occasions.
The subsequent such episodic journey, entitled Rise Of a New Sun (formally ‘patch 4.2’) is due on the finish of the month, and appears set to be a nostalgic journey for Final Fantasy 6’s followers, as you may see within the video after the soar.
So, so much to unpack in that trailer. The predominant story arc appears to be entering into messy diplomatic territory once more, with the Garlean empire sending an particularly slimy-seeming envoy to maybe dealer a short lived truce. More excitingly, the gameplay footage dives nearly instantly into nostalgic territory, with an excellent trying 3D recreation of the ghost practice sequence and subsequent boss struggle from Final Fantasy 6. There’s no phrase on whether or not you’ll be capable to suplex the practice, however weirder issues have occurred.
The earlier replace started a Final Fantasy Tactics-themed side-story arc, co-designed by Tactics director Matsuno himself. It appears possible that can proceed by way of the odd-numbered updates, whereas even-numbered ones will additional discover different numbered Final Fantasies. Given the presence of the ghost practice, the wonderful cowl of Dancing Mad within the trailer and the temporary look of Kefka – the unique insane clown, no posse required – the main target of this explicit episode appears squarely on FF6, though it appears the FF5-inspired Omega story arc shall be persevering with as properly this replace.
There’s a lot extra moreover on the best way, together with an all-new dungeon, Hell’s Lid, set in an Oni-infested mountain, a return to the magi-technological Fractal Continuum, a brand new PvP map, a brand new Beast Tribe quest line to dive into (serving to out the snake-like Vira clan) and a brand new set of underwater cases for guilds to discover by way of the development of customized submarines. Some quality-of-life tweaks have been made to the beauty outfit system, together with common vogue contests held within the glitzy Gold Saucer on line casino, and that’s simply the stuff that’s been unveiled. The official page for patch 4.2 nonetheless has a number of sections locked away till nearer to launch on January 30th.
I’m nonetheless properly behind on the sport, and because of the surprisingly linear nature of Final Fantasy XIV it’ll possible take weeks for me to even meet up with this newest patch, however I’m very tempted to strive within the close to future. Again, owing to the linear nature of the sport, you’ll needn’t solely to have purchased the Stormblood growth to entry the upcoming content material, however accomplished the overwhelming majority of it.
