Endwalker prepurchases are live at the official SquareEnix store!

Just don’t expect to get your hands on the Limited Edition box because it’s already sold out.

A LOT of exciting information was released in last night’s FFXIV Fanfest Keynote event. So much that I’m just going to give a bulleted list of information confirmed with a bit of commentary after.

Here’s the newest full-length trailer to start you off!

Now, on to Things We Learned about Endwalker:

• Release date – November 23, 2021
• Early access starts – November 19, 2021 – Preorder for early access
• New Melee DPS job – Reaper – Scythe-wielding, channels voidsent (?), shares gear with Dragoon
• New area: Old Sharlayan
• Lots of FFIV references such as the Magus Sisters and Hummingways Loporrits
• Original FFXIV Alliance Raid – Myths of the Realm – Focuses on the Twelve
• Male Viera – Female Hrothgar confirmed but forthcoming
• Oceania Data Center Incoming
• Cross Data Center travel coming before the expansion drops
• Preorders already for sale – CE already sold out

Though I’d wished we’d heard something more about the Island Sanctuary, the rest of the keynote pretty much checked all the boxes I was hoping for and beyond.

I’m happy about most things about the Reaper (a term that I noted in one of my previous blog posts). It fits everything I needed for an existing character I have to transition into the new job. It looks and moves the way I hoped it to. I’m just not so sure about this voidsent element – I’ll wait and see what that’s all about.

That we’re going to Old Sharlayan didn’t surprise me. Much like Thavnair, this has been a location that we’ve heard about since early on in the MSQ but have never gone to. It feels like we’re getting a bunch of this as the overarching storyline is coming to a close, and that makes sense to me.

As a major FFIV fan, I’m just basking in all of the FFIV references – something I’ve wanted to see for a very long time in FFXIV! From the minions to some of the remixed music in the trailers… I’m a happy fan. Though I’m pleased at getting Palom and Porom, I remain curious as to where our Paladin Cecil minion is… and I have theories that might be far off base that we might… maybe… even see a form of Cecil as an NPC in the MSQ and that’s where the minion will be?

I can dream, right? But they’ve used NPCs from other FF series games aplenty already!

So, those male Viera. I was not one of those people who were super upset about the lack of male Viera and female Hrothgar – though I understand why some people are. I knew hopes were high for the addition of these two, but I didn’t expect it after the team said they weren’t adding any more new races to the game.

But then, they bust out the male Viera. And boy did Twitter explode!

Way to go above and beyond to make your players over the moon happy – pun intended.

This is why I’ve stuck with this game so long. I totally praise the team for taking in the feedback and tackling the tough job of adding an unexpected feature like this to make people happy. Especially when they were already working double hard to try to get the expansion out due to COVID setbacks.

Nice job, team. You’ve earned my preorder for sure. And that’s not something I’ve been saying about many games as of late.

Oh, and congrats to Oceania for getting a much needed Data Center! The fact that S/E is sinking that much money into a whole new Data Center for the game instills a lot of confidence in me about how long they expect to continue to develop and support FFXIV in the future. Not to mention the current growth and population.

Day two of the FanFest starts tonight for us in the US. I’m looking forward most to the information we’ll get in the Live Letter tonight more than anything else.