FFXIV London Fan Festival 2023 – Keynote Summary
The London Fan Fest Keynote just concluded and gave us an expanded glimpse of what players can expect in the upcoming Dawntrail expansion.
The keynote began with an extended trailer, showing off more of Estinien, as well as one of the new jobs for Dawntrail: Viper, the duel-wielding melee DPS, which FFXIV Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida cosplayed as he walked out onto the stage, joined by Michael-Christopher Koji Fox. Viper is a job class original to Final Fantasy XIV.
Viper
Viper is a melee DPS, using duel blades as its weapon and using Scouting gear. There will be no class requirement. Players will need one job at level 80 and purchase Dawntrail in order to unlock it. It will unlock in Ul’dah.
“Concept: This close-range fighting style passed down by Turali hunters uses two one-handed blades that can be combined into a single two-handed weapon. As such, the viper alternates between pressuring enemies with swift strikes by their twin blades, and dealing mighty blows with their joined weapon. By calling on the memories of ancient hunters contained withing their soul crystal, the viper can imbue their body with additional power for a brief time.”
New Areas
After discussing Viper, Naoki Yoshida recapped some of the information that was revealed during the Las Vegas Fan Fest 2023 Keynote. He mentions that the theme for Dawntrail and 7.0 will be “A Journey of Discovery.”
He then showed a video of the Yok Tural city of Tuliyollal as well as video footage of locations shown at the Las Vegas Fan Festival.
Kozama’uka. This tropical region can be found south of Tuliyollal. Myriad rivers and streams flow down from the crags to the west, creating breathtaking waterfalls. Kozama’uka is home to several peoples- including one reminiscent of the goblins- each maintaining their own unique culture.
There was also a glimpse of another “secret” area shown- Shaaloani. This arid region is located in central Tural. Vegetation is sparse on the rain-starved plains, their expansive vistas making for a striking contrast with the verdant surrounds of the region’s largest lake. The discovery of ceruleum deposits in recent years has brough sweeping change to the area, including the construction of a railroad, even as local peoples maintain their cultural traditions.
The Moblins were announced as a new tribe. A people residing in the jungles of Kozama’uka. Strongly resemble the goblins, with whom they share common ancestry. Known for their ability to procure any useful material, no matter how rare. They welcome skilled tradesfolk from other races, providing the creating environment and quality materials that said artisans require to thrive.
New Dungeons
At least as many dungeons as previous expansions will be released with Dawntrail. Several new images were shown during the presentation, with one showing a boat going down a river with jungle on either side. Another dungeon showed off some ancient ruins on a cliffside, covered in some kind of blue luminous elements. Two pieces of concept art were also shown. One, shows what looks like ancient ruins in an underground lake that may or may not be ceruleum. The other is a very high tech facility, with a large container holding what could possibly be ceruleum- this was confirmed to be a part of the MSQ.
A new enemy was shown as well: Eliminator.
Other Content
Duty support will of course, be made available for all dungeons in the Dawntrail Main Scenario.
We were also given our first glimpse of the job specific armor that will be coming with Dawntrail.
Expansive new lifestyle content will arrive, that will be in the vein of Ishgardian Restoration and Island Sanctuary. This new content will be something that you’ll be able to enjoy with a lot of people. The plan was to show the content at the London event, but the team didn’t feel it was quite ready. It will instead be revealed at the Tokyo Fan Fest in January.
It was revealed that the 24-man Alliance Raid for Dawntrail will be Echoes of Vana’diel, in alliance with Final Fantasy XI. They can’t reveal any more details at this time, but they hope that fans of Final Fantasy XI will enjoy what they have in store.
It was also announced that a new limited job will arrive in the later in 7.x. But there are no further details to share at this time.
Collaborations
We also got a look at the Final Fantasy XIV end of the Fall Guys collaboration that was announced at the Las Vegas Fan Festival. The Gold Saucer attraction will arrive on October 31 as part of Patch 6.51.
The long awaited collaboration with Final Fantasy XVI was finally revealed, “The Path Infernal” showing a fight against the FFXVI version of Ifrit. The collaboration will also include a Torgal mount, Torgal minion, and Clive outfit.
Images and video courtesy of Square Enix.
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