Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn has officially announced the second major expansion, titled “Stormblood“, and has set it’s release window for sometime in early summer of 2017.
The expansion was announced at the FFXIV fan fest today, straight from Naoki Yoshida himself.
Development on Stormblood is well underway according to Yoshi-P, and like Heavensward, the expansion will be focused heavily on an area we already know of – in this case, Ala Mhigo. Yoshi-P has said that the focus of the expansion will be the process of taking back Ala Mhigo from the Garlean Empire, and bringing it back onto friendly terms with the Eorzean Alliance. Oh, and as it comes from Ala Mhigo, the Monk class will be put in the spotlight, the same way the Dragoon was for Heavensward.
A new, huge area called Rhalgr’s Reach (named for Rhalgr, the god of destruction and guardian deity of Ala Mhigo) will be where the new storyline really begins, and will expand from there across several new large zones.
Yoshi-P has also announced that new jobs will be added with the expansion, but said no more. Due to a few clues he gave cryptically during his time on stage (like pointing to his shirt that featured Marvel’s The Scarlet Witch), speculation abounds regarding Red Mage.
Also discussed was a revamp of the battle system and an overhaul of the skill system to address the growing concern among players that the battle system right now doesn’t really work with the abundance of skills that high-level classes have. Since changing classes and having necessary skillsets in given classes is viewed as clunky, the team is working to rework skills based upon battle roles instead of jobs. This is being done to try to unclutter hotbars for high-level play.
And, of course, more general updates were mentioned as well. New Primals will be added as part of the story line. A new housing area is being added, but it is directly tied to the storyline as well, so it was not discussed further. Also coming is a big expansion to inventories – maybe access to more retainers too? To go along with the new sprawling areas, the level cap is being raised from 60 to 70 as well. The new areas are also all going to be flight enabled, but with the holdover that you’ll need to find the aether pockets to gain flight again.
And, finally, Final Fantasy XIV will be dropping support of PS3 to push the game’s performance further.
Square also announced that they will be adding several patches before the Stormblood launch in early summer next year.
Spooky Jack
October 14, 2016 at 3:58 pmNiiiice
aaaa
October 14, 2016 at 3:59 pmMake Ala Mhigo Great Again
Spooky Jack
October 14, 2016 at 3:59 pmRemove refugees
Gillman
October 14, 2016 at 4:21 pmAre they going to remove the requirement to clear all the previous story missions before you can advance?
Mr0303
October 14, 2016 at 4:28 pmThat was a pretty cool trailer. Ironically trailers are my favourite part of any MMO.
Madbrainbox
October 14, 2016 at 4:45 pmYeah.Because usually the gameplay is shit.
Mr0303
October 14, 2016 at 4:51 pmMaybe. I wouldn’t know. I just don’t like people.
Lordlundar
October 14, 2016 at 5:17 pmDoubt it. Story is central to FF14 and skipping whole sections will leave people confused.
Shinobu
October 14, 2016 at 5:39 pmkek
Eldhin Hellknight
October 14, 2016 at 7:50 pmWe need a bunny race
2501
October 14, 2016 at 8:28 pmShould’ve been called BloodStorm instead, that’s way more japanese.
Madbrainbox
October 15, 2016 at 4:04 amLike this?
http://planetjinxatron.com/images/2013/viera-film.jpg
Eldhin Hellknight
October 15, 2016 at 4:52 amyup. If they add the Viera race, i won’t have any issue to start from the very beginning
Madbrainbox
October 15, 2016 at 5:47 amI think that would be a strong incentive for me to try this game.
John Smith
October 15, 2016 at 10:34 amBrown bunny girls in high heels would hit too many of my fetishes
John Smith
October 15, 2016 at 10:35 amUl’Dah needs to build a big Wall and send all of them all back you mean
Madbrainbox
October 15, 2016 at 12:09 pmThey are also quite tall if I remember correctly.
Unmotivated
October 15, 2016 at 12:14 pmThey said you’d just have to beat the HW main story and you can get a recap of the patch storyline when geting into SB.
Unmotivated
October 15, 2016 at 12:17 pmThe announcement was pretty funny, they kept waiting for applause that never came whenever they “announced” that the expansion would contain more of the same shit they’ve been making for the past 3 years, but absolutely deafening cheers when they said they were going to upgrade their shitty servers so they could make some QoL improvements.
Izzy Lichi
October 15, 2016 at 1:12 pmi cant wait to see how they are going to butcher Red mage.
RIP Dark knight.
Guin
October 15, 2016 at 2:48 pmLove the new Tekken trailer.
Viredae
October 15, 2016 at 3:08 pmThey fixed Astro in the last patch, and MCH was already a good alternative to Bard, DRK is the only one which is inferior to both tank classes.
If they stick to only two new classes this time, they may have extra time and manpower to fine tune the two classes better.
Of course, this can all be avoided if they make test servers…
Viredae
October 15, 2016 at 3:09 pmMain reason why NA players are trash.
ProxyDoug
October 17, 2016 at 9:52 amThe trailers for this game are so fucking awesome.