Thavnair boasts a lush natural landscape, bursting with color and architecture seemingly inspired by South and Southeast Asia. The remaining people have either fled, been tempered, or are scraping by in the underground subway stations where a shattered aetheryte resides. It’s a desolate place with only rubble of an abandoned city left to show for it - and a massive tempering tower as a centerpiece. It’s also a city-state insistent on stubborn neutrality and isolationism.Īfter a decade of Garlemald imposing its horrifying will, we finally arrive only to see the oppressive and imperialist nation on its knees.
It’s where Eorzea’s greatest scholars come from the home of the Leveilleur family a place we’ve heard so much about but never seen until now. Old Sharlayan is a new place for players to congregate and soak in the rich (literally), vibrant, and relaxing scenery. My colleague Mike Williams put together a wonderful tour of all these new zones and each of their regions, which put into perspective the weight behind finally traveling to these places. In the absence of cutscenes and dialogue, we looked to the world design itself to tell us the story of the three new expansive areas we could explore: Thavnair, Old Sharlayan, and after all these years, Garlemald. No one else I’d rather run into a terrifying dungeon with than Estinien, Thancred, and Alphinaud. But while our recent preview sessions did not include any specific story-based content, I could get a sense of the stories being told through the game’s design.ĭisclaimer: All the following articles are based on an in-development build of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, and content in the final version is subject to change. I watch the Endwalker intro cinematic and remember the scale of what this expansion represents, as a grand conclusion to a decade-long story arc and as an unprecedented piece of game development, largely done amidst an ongoing global pandemic.
With Endwalker about a month away, these thoughts and feelings are fresh in my mind.
In the impressive spectacle and charming, fancy dialogue, I found reasons to cry over a goddamn catboy multiple times - and still do to this day. There’s a human element to it that carries into how we perceive the game world itself, redefining what an MMORPG could be. In its best moments, FFXIV is endearing and often empathetic captivating and genuine in its melodrama. With every major story beat, we’ve learned something new about its characters and lore, and watched in awe as the pieces of the FFXIV universe shifted around to present stunning revelations about a game we thought we knew well enough. And I’m not just accounting for the sheer number of new players that have come in waves in recent months. It’s wild to think about how much FFXIV has evolved from a gameplay, narrative, and cultural standpoint since the launch of Shadowbringers in July 2019 and the 5.3 update, Reflections in Crystal, in August 2020. A wise catboy once asked, “How many years have I waited for this moment?” For finally getting hands-on with Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker ? Well, about two years.
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