Square Enix has announced Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers, the third expansion for the ongoing MMO, along with a free class coming in Patch 4.5 prior to that.
The news comes from the Las Vegas Fan Fest, where Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida showed off a trailer for Shadowbringers, as well as discussing a little of what we can expect.
Shadowbringers Are Also Contentbringers
There’s plenty of what you’d expect. You’ll get a new player race, multiple new jobs, an increased level cap, new areas, and a storyline focusing on becoming the Warrior of Darkness – but you’ll also get a load of new systems. The NPC Trust System will let players battle alongside the game’s NPCs; a New Game+ Feature lets you replay main scenario missions from the game; and a World Visit system lets you head over to other servers on the same data center. The latter is a particularly nice touch and a good way of avoiding server consolidation.
Alas, no details on the new jobs yet, but judging by the trailer we can possibly expect Gunblades at the very least. Dancer? Geomancer? Hmm.
Shadowbringers isn’t due until summer 2019, but players will be getting an entirely new job before then regardless. The much-requested Blue Mage will be available to all Final Fantasy 14 players in Patch 4.5, accessible after you’ve hit level 50 and have completed the 2.0 main scenario (which, if memory serves, is the base A Realm Reborn content).
Interestingly, the Blue Mage is described as a “unique solo gameplay experience” with a level cap of 50 and “Blue Mage-specific content.” Considering they learn how to use attacks that enemies use on them, this might be for balance reasons. Sounds like you won’t be using them in any dungeon runs, anyway, but will instead be going through some entirely different content. The Blue Mage level cap is set to rise as further content is released in future patches.
Going by past releases and the summer window for Shadowbringers, we can probably expect Final Fantasy 14 Patch 4.5 in the first few months of 2019. You can check out some screenshots and the rather good cinematic trailer for the expansion below, and more information is due at the forthcoming Paris Fan Festival (February 2019) and Tokyo Fan Festival (March 2019).
