Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2024 In Tokyo - Follow Along With Our Live Blog For All The Announcements

And that's a wrap - the keynote closes with a ton of great new announcements. BUT they could not let us leave without showcasing the beautiful keyart for Dawntrail. 

Yes, your eyes did not deceive you in the Dawntrail trailer. Female Hrothgar are coming to Final Fantasy XIV. Females are relatively few in the population, though they are distinct for their "predisposition for leadership."

The upcoming Xbox open beta release is closer than ever, with the open beta kicks off in February, around the 21st, though Yoshi-P cautions that the date might move if they need to.

Also, the team is still developing its crossover with Final Fantasy XVI, releasing in early April.

New dye channels - again Final Fashion getting us all way too excited.

Two dye channels will now allow you to dye even more of your outfit. This means you can now customize your look even more, whether in a cosmetic item or in your armor.

 

Even more graphics update comparisons.

Coming to FFXIV is a graphics update, and while the team is running into some bugs, they are progressing. Hair is more defined, texture resolution his higher and the face looks "more natural" according to Yoshi-P. 

And the new limited job coming in the latter half of 7.xx release will be the Beastmaster. Plans to play solo or in parties with other limited jobs are in the works. The team is also planning some sort of collection feature, but doesn't have any more information as of now.

More Hildebrand confirmed. Oh, and other things throughout Dawntrail's life.

The upcoming Ultimate Raid hearkens back to patch 5.4, Futures Rewritten (Ultimate), though no details are given about the raid itself. Coming with 7.1.

The new Alliance raid coming with Dawntrail is based on Final Fantasy XI, which has run for over twenty years. Echoes of Vana'diel, the Alliance raid brings "The Shadow Lord" to FF14. Coming with 7.1.

Also, a new 8-person raid will take place in a world that doesn't believe in liquid cooling, The Arcadion. New story, new characters and more will be introduced in The Arcadion, with a normal mode and higher difficulties to challenge groups. Coming a month after 7.0 launches.

Again, the real endgame is being shown off, especially with the new material work the graphical update brings with it. The Machinist looks fantastic.

New Lifestyle Content is also coming, with the team showing off some concept art tonight. Various planets will be included in the next lifestyle content update with Dawntrail. There is more than one planet, with a ton of variety apparently, to mix up the scenery.

New threads - the real endgame: Final Fashion XIV is getting a glow up thanks to new recipes in Dawntrail, but also the graphical update.

Swole cacti confirmed.

It won't be just the two new jobs, the team is also updating existing jobs. 

There will also be new dungeons, which Yoshi-P says the progress on which are going well. 

As we know, the level cap will be upped to 100 with Dawntrail.

Dawntrail brings two new jobs, as we discussed: the Pictomancer and the Viper, which you'll recall is the dual-weilding melee DPS class. Apparently, at least in the audience, most are going to play the Pictomancer over the Viper, but like...we can play them all thanks to the flexible job system in the MMO.

As our resident Scion Victoria says, "This is literally a Texas diaspora."

We've left the Cyberpunk-era behind and gone steampunk with a steam-powered train with another new area, Heritage Found.

While the other areas were more natural in...well...nature - these new areas revealed are the literal opposite. Instead, we're going Cyberpunk. It's called "Solution Nine" and functions as a town like the player hub on Tural. It's a city build by an "entirely different civilization" that those inhabitants of Tulliyollal.

A montage of the areas that the team has already shown off played, giving a condensed look at some of the new world, Tural. The island of Tural is set to the West of the main continents and features new races, characters, and more to explore and learn about.

The new character central to Dawntrail's plot will be part of the upcoming Patch 6.55 Part 2, which launches on January 16th. This will be accompanied with a 24-hour downtime to replace all of the Japanese server infrastructure with new machines.

Yoshi-P moved on to talk about the upcoming story of Dawntrail, reminding players that this is meant to be the "greatest summer vacation ever." The Scions find themselves in a contest as part of Tural's rite of succession.

More details about the Pictomancer:

Ranged Magical DPS using casting gear to deal damage. The special weapon of the Pictomancer: their brush, and there won't be a required class. The class starts at level 80 in the Gridania, something that hasn't occurred in an age. Yoshi-P says the new job quests are quite unique.

The Pictomancer uses the "magic of an artist" to turn their imaginations into reality. The Pictomancer in 6 focused just on drawing their enemies, while FF14's Pictomancer can draw creatures, weapons and landscapes. There are "quite a few original visual effects" to make it look like the class truly is drawing.

There will be longer cast skills, but the Pictomancer will have instant-cast skills. While the class is meant as DPS, it will have skills to buff the party. Yoshi-P stops short of saying it's a "full support job" but it can help a class more than, say, a Black Mage. The Pictomancer cannot rez you, though. So keep those White Mages handy.

 

 

Welp, instead of Naoki cosplaying the Pictomancer, the producer isn't sure that as a 50-year-old man he could pull it off. So instead they hired a cosplayer.

The crowd thinks that Yoshi-P could pull it off. 

While we already know about the Viper, the Melee DPS revealed during London's Fan Festival, we got a first look at the new job - which is meant to be a caster DPS job. 

The Pictomancer, a ranged magical DPS job, looks to be quite unique in the grand scheme of MMO jobs. This class comes from Final Fantasy VI, so this is another example of FF14 pulling from its incredible series history to build on the foundation that the MMO has build for ten years.

Release date - we will not hear one announced today as the team does not want to share a date until it's locked in. So hopefully we'll hear about it soonTM, but it is not this day.

Endwalker was delayed, and so the team is looking to ensure their schedule is on track before announcing the date they have saved internally.

Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of FFXIV has taken the stage wearing a "Warrior of Light" Baseball Jersey,a nd now I really want one.

Also - Paint Mage?

The full trailer is, well, great. But it ends with just a simple: Summer 2024 endcard. Maybe we'll see the full release announced during today's festivities?

And we're kicking things off with the full Dawntrail trailer it seems. The music has seen a glow up with more instrumentation, though will we see the new class that has yet to be revealed?

And the countdown has started!