Square Enix revealed that the upcoming Keybound Brawler mini-game arriving in Final Fantasy 14 will have gender-locked glamour rewards and will be a time-limited event. The new Final Fantasy 14 attraction will be hosted at the Manderville Gold Saucer, meaning free trial players can play it while the event is active.
Keybound Brawler was first revealed during the Berlin FanFest keynote address in July, as Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida welcomed Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi to the stage. Keybound Brawler will mark the start of a collaboration between FF7 Remake and FF14 that will culminate throughout the Evercold expansion via an 8-player raid series titled Beyond the Lifestream. The first bosses from the upcoming raid saga will be available for max-level players to challenge shortly after Evercold launches in January 2027.
Keybound Brawler’s Rewards Come With Some Conditions
However, Final Fantasy 14‘s Keybound Brawler will come with some conditions that players must bear in mind before setting foot in the Gold Saucer. Though cosmetic glamour sets based on the outfits worn by Tifa and Barret from the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy will be among the rewards players can earn, each set will be locked by gender. This means that only female player characters can wear the Avalanche Brawler’s attire set, while the Avalanche Leader’s glamour set will be exclusive to male player characters. Ergo, players will not see a male Viera character sporting Tifa’s iconic outfit. Although Square Enix has made changes to FF14‘s cosmetics before, it remains to be seen if the company will remove the gender-based restrictions on Tifa’s and Barret’s outfits pending player feedback.
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Keybound Brawler will also only be available for approximately three months, starting on Wednesday, October 28, and ending sometime in January 2027 once Evercold goes live. Square Enix stated that Keybound Brawler will also return as a periodic event, similar to the Fall Guys collaboration. Given that Keybound Brawler can be unlocked starting at level 15, players on the free trial can also try it out. Participating players will earn Mandervile Gold Saucer Credits (MGC) that can be exchanged for rewards based on Final Fantasy 7, such as a Wind-up Barret minion, a Magitek Scorpion mount that bears a resemblance to FF7 Remake’s Scorpion Sentinel boss, and the Magitype emote.
Finally, Keybound Brawler will not allow gamepads or on-screen keyboards to be utilized, meaning a physical keyboard must be connected to each player’s PC or console to play. Since Final Fantasy 14 is available on consoles that support wired and wireless keyboards out of the box, players can use a budget-friendly membrane keyboard or a pricier mechanical keyboard for Keybound Brawler. Given that the mini-game is a typing challenge, a wired USB keyboard is recommended to minimize any latency or issues that wireless keyboards are prone to.
Two days after Keybound Brawler begins, Final Fantasy 14 will host the Tokyo FanFest throughout Halloween weekend to cap off a busy October for the Final Fantasy brand. The Tokyo FanFest keynote will be held on Friday, October 30, at 10:00 PM Eastern, where Evercold‘s release date and the identity of a new ranged physical DPS Job are expected to be revealed.
- Released
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August 27, 2013
- ESRB
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Teen / Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Engine
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Originally the Crystal Tools engine, but currently it’s a custom engine using parts of the Luminous Engine.
