Square Enix has dropped a ton of information about Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, along with a bunch of trailers and new screenshots. Without wasting any time, let’s dig in.
The big focus with this patch is the new Gunbreaker job class. The Gunbreaker is clearly based around the Gunblade, the favored weapon of Squall Leonheart in Final Fantasy VIII. And its main task looks to be a tank role. Using a variety of ranged attacks and magical ammo, the Gunbreaker can make for a decent addition to any group.
But not content with just a new class, Square Enix also plans to flesh out the Blue Mage class which was added to the game recently.
Check out a trailer and some screenshots of the new class down below.
There’s also a new race choice being added with this expansion, the Viera. This all-female race first debuted in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The introduction for most gamers to this race however was Fran from Final Fantasy XII.
And unfortunately, the samples shown are an example of that really weird trend of highly sexualized designs for female characters that don’t make any sense. Yeah, I totally believe that lingerie “armor” is useful and practical, and that everyone wears it because they want to, *eye roll*. Let’s just hope there’s some more sensible designs in the final version. Anyway, here’s the trailer for the new race.
Square Enix has also detailed several new in-game areas which contain much of new content being added in Shadowbringers.
These new areas will contain the new Alliance Raids being added in the expansion. Alliance Raids a 24-player festivals of fun and violence that player groups can use to take on the biggest challenges in the game. And with the assured increased level cap, the newest suite of end-game content is sure to be some of the toughest in the history of Final Fantasy XIV.
But if you’re more of a solitary player, Square Enix has good news for you as well. Players who prefer a more solo experience will now be able to run through certain dungeons with NPC characters. This should help reduce the time it takes to gather party members for some content. The new Trust system will drop with the expansion.
And keeping with the history of crossover content with other games, Square Enix also announced a collaboration with Yosuke Saito and Yoko Taro, the creators of NieR. on The new Alliance Raid born of this collaboration will be called YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse. The new areas being added as part of Shadowbringers will include this Alliance Raid content and much more.
You can find the new areas in the trailers down below.
And finally here’s the treasure trove of screenshots showing in-game elements, new cinematics and other goodies being added to FF 14 in Shadowbringers.
Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers launches worldwide on July 2nd, 2019. Pre-orders opened February 6th.
