FINAL FANTASY XIV Online News

Final Fantasy creator beats FFXIV: ARR in two weeks, Heavensward in two days

Close to 18 years after leaving Square Enix, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has been trying his hand at one of the most popular games in the series since his departure, leading to some rather wholesome content on Twitter. It turns out, though, that Sakaguchi isn't messing around when it comes to catching up in Final Fantasy XIV, as he's completed the Heavensward expansion in just two days.

As spotted by Fanbyte, Sakaguchi tweeted about starting Heavensward on October 12 before updating everyone that he rolled credits on October 15. To put that into perspective, he first started tweeting about beginning the game on September 27, which means it took him around 16 days to finish A Realm Reborn. That's some serious improvement in the grind. Sakaguchi isn't letting FFXIV dominate too much of his time, though, as he's taken breaks to do things like attend his daughter's wedding.

It's still wholesome, though, to see that Sakaguchi is making his way through the MMO. He initially started playing ahead of a special Tokyo Game Show talk with FFXIV director Naoki Yoshida about the appeal and potential of RPGs. Even though the event has come and gone, he still hung around to see what the hype behind Heavensward is about.

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Breaking Brick Mountains Returns!

The collaboration event with Dragon Quest X, Breaking Brick Mountains, is returning to Eorzea on 19 October! Don’t miss this opportunity to do battle with gargantuan golems and earn rich rewards!

If you’ve previously completed the event, you can replay the quests via the seasonal event replay feature*!

* This event is identical to the one previously held.
* We highly recommend learning more about the seasonal event replay feature on the collaboration special site.

Visit the special site.

FFXIV Endwalker has a longer story than Shadowbringers

Square Enix is rounding off a story around ten years in the making when Final Fantasy XIV's Endwalker expansion releases in November. If you're booking time off work to dart through it all, though, you might be wondering how long the expansion actually is?

During a recent Endwalker preview event, director Naoki Yoshida hammered home that this will be the most significant expansion yet, comparing its story content the game's last big expansion. "Especially for the story, when we look at the amount of text, cut scenes and so on," Yoshida says (thanks, MMORPG), "I don't want to give such a comparative figure, but there's a lot more here than in Shadowbringers."

Endwalker will wrap up what the team calls the "Hydaelyn and Zodiark Saga", which, broadly speaking, features two groups blessed by different entities, fated to lock horns with each other in a series of near-apocalyptic skirmishes. The story has continued through various expansions over the years, from A Realm Reborn and Heavensward to Stormblood and Shadowbringers.

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"There's no perfect system", but the FFXIV devs want to do more to combat harassment

Square Enix is looking into improving Final Fantasy XIV's social features following calls from players for better protection against stalking and harassment. However, it seems we may have to wait a while to see any such changes implemented.

While issues of player misbehaviour have been raised on the FFXIV subreddit numerous times over the years, one post in late September brought the conversation back to the fore. Some of the ideas the community proposes to tackle the problem include the abilities to remove yourself from someone else's friend list and to make your Lodestone profile private. It's also been suggested that you should be able to block someone's account, not just their character. We recently got the chance to attend a preview event for FFXIV's next expansion Endwalker, so we took the opportunity to ask director Naoki Yoshida if the team has any plans for the update or beyond to implement changes like these.

"We're aware that this is a big discussion in the community, but at the same time, there are various reasons why our specifications are designed as they are," he explains. "It's a very serious topic, so I would like to take a lot of care in how I answer this, so please allow me to explain."

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Why I'm maining the Reaper in FFXIV Endwalker

When I first came to Eorzea, I felt like a stranger. Like many others, I started playing Final Fantasy XIV's free trial during lockdown, and have since moved onto a full subscription, partly to play with friends, mostly for a new outfit.

After a year of continuous play I still feel like a stranger; I've missed out on ten years of changes, tweaks, and community stories. Your character is also a stranger to FFXIV's world of Hydaelyn - a curious soul with a mysterious power that you learn more about across a mammoth main quest line. One of the quickest connections I made to them is that we are both surrounded by people who have inhabited our respective spaces long before we arrived, and it's this connection that inspires the roleplay I love so much about this MMO. But that'll all change when Endwalker releases.

While its story and accessibility to solo players got me through the door, FFXIV's jobs have been the biggest hook for me. They really let you immerse yourself in each role and aesthetic. Put it down to years of watching Kurosawa movies or infatuation with Demon Slayer anime, but I settled on the Samurai. Adventuring through Eorzea as a lone, wandering ronin fits the image of playing FFXIV I have in my head, though the melee DPS job's set of abilities is particularly accommodating for solo play.

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