Final Fantasy XIV Asked Me to Hang Out After Saving the World, and That’s Great

Epic tales demand epic stakes on a regular basis: evils to face, worlds to avoid wasting, the possibility so that you can be, or watch or learn together with, a hero who takes all of it on and triumphs, solely to be referred to as into motion time and time once more. Final Fantasy XIV does precisely that, however in its newest chapter, it additionally asks you to do one thing altogether totally different: be a hero on their downtime.

This week, the beloved MMORPG launched its first main content material replace because the launch of its latest expansion, Endwalker, in December 2021. Patch 6.1, titled Newfound Adventure, picks up the place the story of that growth left off—a climactic end result of a narrative Final Fantasy XIV had been constructing itself in direction of because it relaunched in 2013.

Endwalker carried the load of eight years of storytelling on its shoulders, and for probably the most half pulled that off to inform a sweeping, epic story of apocalypses lengthy within the making, daring and daring plans of sacrifice hatched throughout generations of time, love, loss, and saving not only a world, however a universe from full devastation. It culminates with a battle between you, your greatest buddies, and the magical embodiment of the idea of existential despair reworked into an almighty being able to drowning and dooming total worlds with a tune of dread. You know, massive outdated fantasy stuff. You’re the hero. Hope and friendship beats evil. The day is saved, you assault, and also you dethrone about as near a capital-G-God as you may get, which is saying one thing since you kill gods each different week in Final Fantasy XIV.

Newfound Adventure is the direct reverse of that. Your hero is perhaps the final hero, a Warrior of Light now often called the savior of not simply your own home however your total existence, however occasions have modified for them. Their closest allies, their duties fulfilled, have gone into one thing of a retirement, disbanding their group—the Scions of the Seventh Dawn—to go pursue their very own pursuits. You have modified as effectively, your very relationship to the world as the previous fated guardian of its crystalline deity now upended and reworked along with your responsibility achieved, leaving you eager for the straightforward lifetime of being a wandering journey, as you as soon as have been when your journey was simply starting.

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You could have additionally stopped being a Bunny boy scythe-wielding Reaper, and adjusted class and look alike to be a Lion man who summons primal deities for enjoyable and huge quantities of injury. But which may simply be me.

Lion man or in any other case, Newfound Adventure tees off a brand new chapter for Final Fantasy XIV—its builders teasing that that is the start of one other decade-long saga akin to the escalation from A Realm Reborn, XIV’s reboot, all the best way as much as Endwalker. But it does so in a profoundly charming method: by not being the stage-setter for some massive, sweeping fantasy story about good and evil. Or at the very least, not but. Instead it acknowledges that its world has simply reckoned with an escape from calamity, that your character has simply saved the universe as you understand it, and as an alternative asks: what for those who simply needed to hang around and faff about with a number of of your pals?

While there may be some stage-setting right here and there in Newfound Adventure’s new story quests, its major narrative thread is about your character reuniting with a number of of your fellow Scions—Estinien, the brooding Dragoon, and Y’shtola, the highly effective Mage particularly—as you attempt to re-establish your self as a rumor-chasing, coin-earning adventurer for rent, and likewise see what they’re to date that they don’t should run and battle just like the world is actually at stake day by day of their lives. Some of them are busy with reduction efforts within the wake of Endwalker’s devastation of the world, some are, such as you, chasing the lifetime of an adventurer themselves. Some are following outdated hobbies and finding out historical texts and magical objects, for analysis and maybe preparation ought to they ever want to assist save the universe once more. And a few of them are both completely joyful to pull you into an journey for that analysis, just like the aforementioned Y’shtola, or some are simply desperate to be dragged away from that analysis and do one thing thrilling once more, like your fellow scholarly ally G’raha Tia.

It’s all very low stakes. There’s hardly any fight throughout the story quests of Newfound Adventure, save for a dungeon you trek into, as a result of, effectively, it’s new content material in an MMORPG and you must have a brand new dungeon to run round in. And whereas like I mentioned, some seeds are thrown for threats down the road to make themselves identified to you, that’s moreso for the participant fairly than your character to know. For probably the most half, they’re simply vibing: head empty, having enjoyable, happening little adventures for coin and dialog with outdated buddies. That means you are as effectively.

Endwalker was an extremely cathartic launch on Final Fantasy XIV’s built-up narrative. The method XIV is structured round closely gated, linear story-driven content material, enjoying by this sweeping climax of a whole lot upon a whole lot of hours of storytelling and character work is an emotional rollercoaster for even the least-interested participant. Throwing you proper again into the deep finish of issues with massive stakes and larger bads to go smack within the face for loot and emotional satisfaction would’ve cheapened each the dire stakes of that story you simply went by, and no matter new risk that would’ve been thrown at you. Final Fantasy XIV understands that you could’t simply maintain the dial at all times cranked as much as 11, and for these stakes to really feel really dire for you and your characters, there must be this wax and wane within the sense of scale.

That’s usually laborious to get proper in a world of seemingly limitless franchises and sequelization, the place the stakes at all times should maintain constructing and constructing and constructing. And admittedly, “hey, come back to play this game and hang out” might not be as massive an instantaneous promote as “you are the chosen hero who has to save the whole universe.” But Final Fantasy XIV’s place as an MMO, a residing story that retains on going so long as the sport does, lets it do one thing that few epic journey tales hardly ever can: sit and see what occurs when a world has to go on, when characters should go on, when the massive world-ending risk is handled.

Right now, for Final Fantasy XIV, what occurs is hanging along with your former comrades and chilling out a bit. There’ll be battles to return: proper now you’ve earned a relaxation, and that may be simply as satisfying an expertise as battling gods and monsters.

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