It was a matter of time before the expanded Final Fantasy 14 trial would expand to greater heights (and playtimes). As announced at the first Fan Festival in North America, FFXIV’s next patch, likely in October, will allow you to not only play through its second expansion, Stormblood, for free, but you can knock out nearly all the content alone.
Right now, FFXIV has four expansions available, with the fifth, Dawntrail, to be launched early next summer. All have at least relatively positive acclaim, though while Stormblood isn’t a fan favorite, compared to the beloved Heavensward or Shadowbringers (or even Endwalker, our review of which was infamously quoted by FFXIV’s social team), it’s certainly a solid story with fantastic optional content and the beloved Samurai class.
Players have also been eagerly awaiting the implementation of the bots further and further into the MSQ. Now, it seems like this process has finally caught up with… almost all of the mandatory story content.
Which Parts Of FFXIV: Stormblood You’ll Be Able To Play Solo
Almost all of FFXIV’s main story will be soloable before Dawntrail drops next summer. By the end of the 6.5 patch cycle, you’ll be able to use bots/AI in every story dungeon up through Stormblood’s “patch content” prior to the paid Shadowbringers expansion, plus the four-man trials of A Realm Reborn’s primary content. This is through the Duty Support system implemented since Endwalker and the Trust system that begins in Shadowbringers.
However, “trials,” which are simply boss fights, are still not included as part of this update. The team noted that while one Endwalker trial was given a Trust system (please do NOT look this up, because it’s HEAVY spoilers and you WILL regret looking it up), it’s still deeply flawed and would require more work to release on a wider scale. We don’t have any word on this progress at the moment.
Most optional and large-scale content also will not likely see the bots, including raids, alliance raids, and optional “Hard” versions of dungeon and fan favorites like The Twinning. It’s likely good to encourage players to actually engage with the MMORPG aspects of the game, though surely some players would like to see the end of the Thousand Maws necromancy storyline sometime. But at least Chocobo Races have bots!
What Will Be Free In FFXIV: Stormblood’s Trial
Most “content” in FFXIV that you can access through level 70 will be free, if the prior trial expansion’s guidelines apply. This means, for one, you can level all your classes up to 70, including “crafting” and “gathering” ones, as many do. You can also access the community-beloved Deltascape trials, which feature Final Fantasy bosses from throughout the franchise.
It seems like the same types of restrictions as usual will exist in the Stormblood trial expansion. Mostly, things like friend list invitations, Free Company membership, “shout” and “yell” chat, and economy activities will remain restricted. There’s also a gil cap, as well as the usual end-of-expansion level cap.
The restrictions are mostly to prevent “botting,” which is farming and selling gil and items at a mass rate. Like every good MMORPG, FFXIV does have its bots, which live beneath the ground of your favorite cities. (I’m not joking; run an idle cam sometime.) The trial restrictions ensure that this doesn’t happen on a mass scale, because that’s annoying.
For players looking to experiment and try the game’s story, the restrictions shouldn’t be particularly burdensome. Plus, you can be a samurai now, for free, without playing a MOBA. That’s pretty neat.
Just please make sure you’re buying the right version. Or rather, not buying the right version. We can help you with that (and a few other things, too).
