Final Fantasy 14 Expansion Reveal Set for October

Final Fantasy 14 producer Naoki Yoshida reveals during an interview with a Japanese publication that Square Enix will announce the next major expansion for the game this October.

Most Final Fantasy fans have September 30 circled on their calendars as that is the release date for the long-awaitedFinal Fantasy XV on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But Square Enix recently revealed that another major title in the Final Fantasy franchise will be making headlines this fall, not too long after XV ships.

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn producer Naoki Yoshida has confirmed that the next expansion for the three-year-old game will be announced at October’s Fan Festival in Las Vegas. Siliconeratranslated an interview Yoshida gave to Japanese publication Game Watch to get the details.

Game Watch directly asked the Final Fantasy 14 producer if there was an expansion announcement coming at the festival and Yoshida got right to the point. “That’s right,” he said. “This is a game that is supported by many players, so we’d like to share the biggest news together with the fans at the Fan Festival meetings.”

This won’t be the first time Square Enix has used its Final Fantasy Fan Festival to announce an expansion for A Realm Reborn. The game’s current expansion, Heavensward was announced at the 2014 Festival before releasing the following summer. Using that as a barometer, it looks like players will be heading into Patch 4.0 no later than the middle of 2017. Yoshida also discussed where the story will be going in advance of the next expansion with Heavensward wrapping up its Dragonsong War storyline.

“I believe that we’ll see the big changes starting with Patch 3.5,” Yoshida teased. “Similar to what we had in Patch 2.5 and 2.55, which I believe was a big pivot.” Asked if players would go somewhere other than Heavensward’s main city-state of Ishgard, Yoshida remained cryptic. ““If anything, I believe they [Ishgard] will be more involved with the Warrior of Light and the Scions, who helped end the war.”

While there are few details so far about the next expansion for Final Fantasy 14, one thing that will be interesting to see is how Square Enix decides to tune the game’s difficulty. Heavensward caused a backlash among some players after it offered more difficult encounters than what was in the original game, forcing Yoshida and team to nerf some of the encounters.

While a new expansion for a popular MMO is always big news, that’s not the only thing Square Enix might be working on in relation to Final Fantasy 14. Yoshida also recently said in another interview that his team might work with Microsoft to bring the game to the Xbox One. Originally, this was thought to be impossible due to Microsoft’s console infrastructure not allowing cross-platform play, but E3 2016 may have changed things. A key focus for Microsoft this year was the announcement of its Xbox Play Anywhere program and other efforts to bring down the wall between consoles and PCs. Yoshida said that Microsoft actually approached his team about bringing the game to Xbox One but noted that discussions are ongoing. A version for the Nintendo NX may also be in the works.

Final Fantasy 14 is out now on PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.

Source: Siliconera