Today, Square Enix revealed several new details of “Evercold”, the next expansion coming for its popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.
The info was shared directly by Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida during the keynote of the second Fan Festival 2026 in Berlin, Germany, adding to what was shared in Anaheim.
The keynote started with a spectacular trailer introducing the story of Evercold and the first new job, the Bastion.
You can check it below in English, while the Japanese version can be found on the official YouTube channel.
The expansion will see us travel to The Fourth Reflection, which has been taken over by ice. The people have fled to the skies on massive airships. Much of our time in the expansion will be spent on these ships, called Realmships.
More information will arrive on September 8 with patch 7.5 Part 2
We then get the introduction of the new job, a dual shield-wielding tank named Bastion. The twin shields are called the Skyltborg. You can see the class in action below and find a few slides with more details.
The second new job will be revealed in November at the Fan Festival in Tokyo.
Moving on to the Fourth, we take a look at some of the new areas, starting with Naglfar, the Realmship of Water. The giant crystal at the center of the ship is the Arccrystal. They are very important to each ship and play an important role in the story.
The first player town is Fargarth on Naglfar
We then get to take a look at Hringhorni, the Realmship of Fire. Incidentally, the fields aren’t going to be smaller than what we’re used to. They’re going to be the same or larger.
More artwork of the areas can be found below.
Moving on to more mechanical details, there will be more flexibility in the way we’ll proceed through the content. We’ll be able to take different paths, experiencing the story in a different order. The outcome won’t be affected.
Leveling and progression will be taken care of by auto content balancing for some fields and instanced dungeons affected by the branching experience. The developers are already thinking of ways to incorporate this into future content.
We heard that there will be new ways to raise item level, but more information will be shared in Tokyo.
Speaking of the ability to copy your item level to other jobs, it’ll be possible only between jobs that hit the level cap. Players who want to minmax will still be able to gather the best gear for each job.
We finally get more information on the character action skins. Patch 8.0 will bring skins for general actions, while the first batch of job action skins will come in 8.1. It’ll take some time to cover more actions, so more will be introduced with more updates.
More customization options for characters will come in 8.1. For instance, the darkening on the nose of lalafell and viera, on top of the warpaint for miqo’te, will be an optional toggle via face paint layering. Au Ra will be able to mix and match horns and scales.
Yoshida-san teased that the much-memed butt-slider and long hair are going to take time, but they’re coming.
The development team is working on adding more exploratory content in the underutilized regular fields. The working title for this new system is “World Raids,” but it’s likely to change. More information will come soon.
Yoshida-san also mentioned that the developers are working on implementing the ability to automatically move to quest objectives. Implementing this will take time, so it’ll be staggered through subsequent patches.
Today we also learn about the third difficulty level for 8-player raids. Currently, we have Normal and Savage. 85% of players complete the Normal version, while 14-20% complete the savage version, as they have a large gap in difficulty and rewards.
The new difficulty will be in between, and it’ll be similar to or somewhat easier than the current extreme encounters.
In terms of rewards, savage raid will give raid gear directly as usual, while the new category will give season gear that can gradually be upgraded to be closer to raid gear.
The test for the same-region party matching on the Japanese servers will start on October 12, and it’ll be implemented in other regions as soon as possible.
Below you can check out screenshots and artwork for new dungeons and gear, on top of new enemies.
The duty support will get an update starting with an overhaul of the chocobo companion, starting in 8.1.
We’ll be able to take them into dungeons with teams of 2 players and 2 chocobos. A system is being worked on to adjust duty difficulty based on the stats of the chocobo.
Chocobo breeding will be overhauled in 8.2, including the re-examination of gyshal greens and a complete revamping of basic commands. Current chocobo rank won’t be affected and will carry over to the new system.
We also get a slightly updated trailer about the Evangelion crossover raid series, Ghosts of Desire. Mahiro Maeda will participate as a guest designer and artist.
The new 8-player raid series is titled “Beyond the Lifestream,” and it’ll be a crossover with the Final Fantasy VII Remake series.
Here are a few details.
Speaking of Final Fantasy VII Remake, new content is coming to the Gold Saucer after Update 7.5 Part 2. It’s inspired by the Remake’s Gold Saucer, and it’s a typing game titled Keybound Brawler. It’ll launch on October 28 and will let players earn Barret and Tifa’s costumes. Barret’s gun is a fashion accessory.
Typing gameplay will also be used for further content in the future.
We then hear that the official release date of the Nintendo Switch version will be August 4, 2026. The first month will be free of subscription fees as the game is tested.
Pre-orders start today.
Lastly, we get the reveal of the Collector’s Edition and its contents.
Final Fantasy XIV is currently available for PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox Series X|S.
