Great news for Final Fantasy XIV freaks, but bad news for those of us who are still trying to catch up with the MMORPG’s literally hundreds-of-hours-long story: FFXIV is about to get even longer. At the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival keynote on Friday, Square Enix shared a teaser trailer for the game’s next major expansion, which is officially called Evercold. It’s slated to release in January 2027.
Evercold is going to be a pretty big deal. The expansion kicks off a new story arc called the Godless Realms Saga, another detail that was revealed today. Pretty much all of the game’s 13 years of content thus far have fallen under a single saga, so Evercold officially starting a brand new one is a big deal. I think we all assumed this already, but the new saga’s announcement also solidifies the fact that FFXIV is probably going to continue sticking around for a long time rather than get replaced by another MMO sequel.
The expansion’s teaser trailer is pretty vague, but it does showcase the chilly realm of the Fourth reflection, which, spoiler alert, is basically a new world in an alternate dimension. Square Enix has also been sharing some concept art from the Fourth on Twitter, and it looks really, really sick:
Evercold comes almost two years after the release of Dawntrail, the last major expansion, which was…not super well received. A few incoming patches are set to bridge the gap between Dawntrail and Evercold, starting with Patch 7.5 on April 28th.
Other features coming to FFXIV soon are two new mysteriously unnamed jobs (one tank, one physical ranged DPS), same-region player matching, and better character creation options. The Fan Fest crowd screamed pretty ravenously when director Yoshi-P announced this last one in the livestream, although he hilariously clarified through his translator that there’s “no butt sliders…yet.”
Every time a new FFXIV expansion drops, I always jump back into the game in a sisyphean attempt to finally catch up with the story. However, I always just end up fishing instead. I’m still excited to do this goofy little song and dance in January, though, and I am curious to see what new content (and fish) Evercold brings to the MMORPG. Maybe one day I’ll get far enough to actually see it myself.