Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail's early access is less than a month away—which can only mean one thing: I am just now scrambling to get all the Yo-Kai Watch event items and suffering for it. Oh, right, and the official Dawntrail site is up, that's important too.
Unlike, say, World of Warcraft, FF14 doesn't publicly test its upcoming expansions to preserve the sanctity of spoiler-free goodness. It does, however, tend to nonchalantly drop reveals into its descriptions to keep us salivating. This time around it's mostly small popotos, but there are a couple of new reveals that have personally caught my catboy-loving eye.
First up, the new raid series, The Arcadion—which takes place in the mysteriously cyberpunk Solution Nine. Previously announced at the Japanese fanfest in January, we didn't have much to go off apart from the title. Well, now we've got an entire paragraph of text to chew on like feral animals for the next four weeks, wowee:
"Here at the Arcadion, you'll find a grand spectacle unlike any other. The realm's greatest fighters pit fist against fist and magick against magick, putting their lives on the line as crowds howl and clamour, each clash more visceral than the last. Step into the arena if you dare, and either rise to become champion, or fall forever in ignominy."
Do you know what that means? That's a tournament arc, baby. Honestly I'm all for it, considering how high-stakes the last raid series was. It's also a conceit for Naoki Yoshida to throw basically anything at us—personally, I'm hoping for a raid boss where you get to fight the other scions Super Smash Brothers: Brawl-style.
We've also had a petit lore drop on just how the Pictomancer came to be: Archon Relm, obviously named after FF6's Relm Arrowny, "relinquished her traditional staff for a magicked brush" during the War of the Magi. Those hoping for Relm herself to make a cameo will probably be disappointed, though, since the War of the Magi was around 3,000-1577 years ago. Who knows? Maybe she's got a legendary skincare routine going.
Last in the trio of reveals: We're going to the Bermuda Triangle. Or, well, the FF14 equivalent. This expansion's Bozja, the field exploration of Shades' Triangle, will see adventurers heading to a mysterious land rife with the memories of lost sailors.
"Be not fooled", warns the site, "by the lush and fertile island you spy on the horizon—men and vessels alike have been lost to its allure, never to be seen again. Yes, the wisest choice is to dismiss it as mere illusion. But of course, there are inevitably those who cannot resist the call of adventure." Me. I'm the one who cannot resist the call.
Ultimately it's Shades' Triangle I'm looking forward to the most—I felt the absence of a field exploration zone severely in Endwalker, and I'm looking back to having a social-adjacent grind to get back to. Dawntrail will enter early access June 28, with its full release slated for July 2.
Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail's preliminary patch notes are here—showing fixes to those annoying stealth quests and the ability to banish NPC-crowding players to the shadow realm
Please be nice about FF14: Dawntrail spoilers if you're in early access, says Square Enix, as some players will start 'at the official launch or play at their own pace'
