Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker’s upcoming changes, explained – Polygon

The next expansion for Final Fantasy 14, Endwalker, is coming in fall 2021. The expansion was revealed in a showcase stream on Friday night, detailing what players have to look forward to in the new add-on.

We’ve compiled all of the biggest announcements about the game below for easy reading.

Level your characters to 90

As expected from a new expansion, Final Fantasy 14 players will be able to level their characters all the way up to 90, up from the current level cap of 80. It’s unknown if this includes Blue Mage, but seeing how that job just got its level cap increased to 70, it’s likely that Blue Mages will be able to hit 90 during the Endwalker patch cycle.

Unlock a new healer job, Sage

The next healer job, Sage, is a new creation for Final Fantasy 14 and it uses weapons called Nouliths. Nouliths fire off energy blasts and help you shield your allies, meaning that Sage will sit beside Scholar as a shield-based healer. To balance this, the Astrologian job will be changed to be more direct heal-oriented.

To unlock Sage, players will have to talk to an NPC in Limsa Lominsa and the job will unlock at level 70. You’ll also need a different job already at 70 to unlock Sage.

The second new job will be a melee DPS

While not fully revealed, the developers confirmed that the second new job for the expansion would be a melee DPS. Producer Naoki Yoshida, who often wears shirts during streams that hint at what the addition could be, wore shirts adorned with skeletons and grim reapers.

That has players speculating that the new job could be a scythe-wielding original concept for Final Fantasy 14 or maybe a necromancer, who summons corpses that do melee DPS.

Explore new areas, including Thavnair and the Garlean Empire

After hearing about the island of Thavnair through its onions and outfits, we can finally visit the area. Both Thavnair and the Garlean Empire have been mentioned countless times in Final Fantasy 14, but for the first time, we’ll be able to visit both. Thavnair will be home to Radz-at-Han, one of the main cities for the Endwalker expansion.

Radz-at-Han will be the smaller of the two main cities. We’ll likely have to go there to exchange gear, but there won’t be a marketboard there.

Yes, we’ll also be going to the moon, but Square Enix hasn’t revealed any information on what’s up there.

Take care of land on an island sanctuary

Players will be able to tend to animals and land in an island sanctuary. Not too much has been explained about this feature, but it’s meant to give players a break from the nonstop combat and allow them to enjoy a peaceful life.

Ishgard housing is finally coming

Now that players have worked hard to rebuild the firmament in Ishgard, they’ll be able to buy housing there. Though the new housing wards will be visible right away in patch 6.0, lots won’t be able to be purchased until 6.1.

Estinien will become a Trust NPC

Estinien, everyone’s favorite stinky dragoon, is joining the trust system. You can now select him as an NPC to help you clear dungeons, filling in the highly desired melee DPS slot. Together, we can kill Estinien with our AOEs.

Pandaemonium is the next raid tier

Not too much information has been shown about Pandaemonium, but we do know that it has something to do with the Ascian, Lahabrea. The name serves as a reference to things from both Final Fantasy 2 and Final Fantasy 9, so players have already started speculate about3 what could happen this tier.

The Dragonsong War (Ultimate) is coming in patch 6.1

This is technically only half-related to Endwalker. The next Ultimate fight, based off of The Dragonsong War, was slated to hit the game in patch 5.55, but because of complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been pushed to launch in patch 6.1 instead. We’re unsure if this means that Endwalker will have three Ultimate fights, but get ready to probably take on Thordan and Nidhogg (again) in 6.1.

The newest tribe is an elephant-inspired group called Matanga

The first tribe to be revealed for Endwalker is the Arkasodara tribe of Matanga, elephant-like folks. The developers did not explain what type of tribe quests they would focus on, but look forward to helping them out and getting some sweet rewards.

Belts are getting removed

Belts are getting removed as they serve no aesthetic purpose. The inventory slots that belts take up are getting split between rings and weapons, with five extra slots being saved for other use. (They did not specify what the other use is.)

Once 6.0 launches, all players will find themselves without their belts, but the Calamity Salvagers will be holding on to them, if you need to take off materia or if you want to desynth them.

Anima, the Final Fantasy 10 boss, joins the game as a primal

The stream showed us one of the new trials from Endwalker, namely Anima from Final Fantasy 10, who will be added to the game as a primal. Not much other information was explained.

Stats are getting squished down

To put it simply, numbers in Final Fantasy 14 are getting way too big. They’re getting so high that they’re somewhat breaking the system. So to remedy this, Square Enix is squishing the stat gains from level 50 and higher. Things will feel mostly the same, though doing older content unsynced may be a bit harder.

Players will be able to travel to other data centers

Finally, players will be able to hang out with their friends across data centers. This system is still being worked on, but the developers said that players would have to re-login to the game in order to change data centers.

Final Fantasy 14’s patch 5.5 will be released on April 13, alongside a PlayStation 5 beta. Endwalker will be released in fall 2021, with more information on the expansion coming in May.