The most exciting time of the year is coming soon for Final Fantasy XIV fans, as the upcoming expansion Endwalker‘s release is just around the corner. Set to release on Nov.23, and on Nov.19 for players who preordered it, it will add much new content and change numerous mechanics to keep the game fresh.
On top of the content released at the launch date, regular updates will bring more new features to enjoy for the year to come and new chapters to conclude the story that started in 2013. Here is everything new that will come alongside Endwalker next month.
New classes: Sage and Reaper
Similar to previous expansions, Endwalker will bring two new classes into the roster. The first one is the healer class Sage, which will use barriers like the Scholar to support its team. It will also be an aggressive healer class with many damage spells using a jauge and other resources to cast its spells.
The Reaper, on the other hand, will be a melee DPS class. But contrary to other melee classes, it won’t use many positionals but will rely more on combos to reach its demon form. It’ll use a scythe to attack its opponents and will feature some enhancement buffs for the party, granting it a support aspect, too.
In the latest Live Letter from the Producer in September, Square Enix dove deep into both’ classes gameplay with detailed explanations and video footage of their complete rotations. With the latest media event this month, it also allowed many media outlets and content creators to test them out, although they’re subject to changes before the expansion’s release. According to some of them, both classes aren’t that easy to learn, but they’re quite fun once the players get the hang of them.
Changes on all classes and level cap raise
On top of both new classes, the players who main other ones will be able to enjoy new abilities as the level cap will be raised from 80 to 90 but also changes made on all existing ones.
In the latest Live Letter from the Producer, Square Enix showed the new rotations of every class in Endwalker in video footage. The players mostly reacted to the Summoner’s changes, which will likely be significant. The class will be able to summon real Primals such as Garuda and Titan, but its poison mechanics will be replaced and the Bahamut jauge will change.
Every other class will receive some changes, many of them being highlighted with the latest media event where players were able to test them out before the expansion’s release. There’s a chance they will be adjusted before then, so it’s advised to take those videos with a grain of salt, however.
Bunny boys
Prepare your Fantasia potion: the highly-anticipated new feature of Male Vieras will join the roster of playable races with Endwalker. There’s no news on a time window for female Hrothgar, however.
New areas
The players will be able to explore numerous new areas with the upcoming expansion. There will be areas for everyone’s taste, from greenlands to battlefields, as well as the Moon. One of Endwalker‘s central regions will be Thavnair and its capital city Radz-at-Han, an island that features Middle-Eastern and Indian inspirations. There, the players will meet the tribe of Matanga, hybrids between human and elephant.
They will also meet more characters from Sharlayan, the home of Students of Baldesion, which include existing characters such as G’raha Tia from the Crystal Tower, and Krile from the Eureka storyline. From what we’ve seen in the latest media event footage, the architecture will resemble Idyllshire’s.
Finally, the players will be able to explore the Moon and the home of the Garlean Empire they’ve been fighting since A Realm Reborn, Garlemald. There won’t be much of it, however, as it will be in ruins due to Zenos’ schemes. On the Moon or in Sharlayan, the tribe of the Loporritis will likely be discovered, which is a tribe of little hybrid bunnies–nothing to do with the fearsome Vieras.
The conclusion to A Realm Reborn‘s narrative arc
The fight of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and then the Alliance, against the Garlean Empire and the Ascians, will be likely brought to an end with the Endwalker expansion. It means that the players will finally discover the end of the story that started eight years ago. On the other side, it will also reveal the beginning of FF XIV‘s next era.
If you’re wondering how to catch up and refresh your memory to better understand the expansion’s story without redoing all the content, we’ve got you covered. Natsuko Ishikawa, FF XIV‘s narrative designer who worked on Endwalker, has mentioned that Stormblood‘s Omega and Heavensward‘s Bahamut Coil storylines would be tightly linked to its story, so it’s advised to do them again or complete them at all if it’s not already done. It should be also helpful to watch Shadowbringers‘ last cutscenes again to remember where you stopped.
Quality-of-life changes
Several quality-of-life changes will be introduced into the game with Endwalker, but Square Enix has yet to reveal all information on that subject. It’s known that squish stats aiming at making the game more accessible to new players will be introduced, but it’s unclear what will be the consequences on unsynced content, Savage raids’ difficulty, and general XP gain.
New feature with few details revealed, a new place called Sanctuary will allow the players to take care and play with their minions in a new way. A new title screen dedicated to the expansion will replace Shadowbringers‘ displaying Hydaelyn seeing from the outside, but the game menu won’t seemingly change much outside of that.
Lastly, the housing system will be reworked to put an end to the long grind of players who seek a beautiful house. They’re rare on FF XIV and unfortunately, the current system forces the players to stay in front of a free plot for hours if they hope to be the first to buy it as soon as it becomes available. In Endwalker, no more of that; a lottery system will replace it.
On top of those in-game changes, Square Enix has promised to add new servers and increase their stability to meet the growing demand of players, which have been causing various server and ping issues over the last few months. But be warned: even with those upgrades, the excitement for the long-awaited expansion is so high that the servers will likely struggle during launch days in any case.
