We’re a little less than a month away from Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest Tokyo which will likely contain some of the final major bits of info we’ll get on Evercold ahead of its January 2027 release. But even now, there’s still a lot we know about the expansion which is looking like the most significant update to the game and its systems since Creative Studio III literally blew up the world with A Realm Reborn 13 years ago. Here’s what we know.
Class Is In Session
Evercold will come with two new job classes and we’ve already seen the first—bastion. The bastion is a tank class wielding its signature weapon, the skyltborg. What’s that you ask? Imagine a gunblade, now make it a gunshield…that also has a blade. In the class’s brief overview trailer, you can see the skyltborg defend with giant shields, attack at range with bursts of aether fire, while also getting into melee range to dice shit up. It’s an unholy amalgamation of three different disciplines—melee dps, ranged dps, and tanking—that somehow manages to work. We haven’t had official confirmation of the second class, but we know it will feature ranged physical damage. Fan theories suggest the class involves a crossbow and PC Gamer has a neat breakdown that makes a strong case in support of that.
Glamour Really Is The Endgame
Perhaps the biggest draw to Final Fantasy XIV, beyond the at times legendary storytelling, is the incredible detail with which players can customize their avatar. With Evercold, the game is getting a wealth of new customization options including changing Au Ra horns, nose shadings, face paint, and custom color picking for eyes, hair, and skin tones. Additionally, customization options are also coming to animations giving players the ability to have unique looks for their teleport spell and other class-specific actions.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Evercold is really taking the theme of customization to heart because for the first time, players will be able to choose how they progress in the main story quest. Where in previous expansions unfolded linearly, Evercold will allow players to choose where they take the story next, and conversations with NPCs will reflect the choices they’ve made. In the example shared by Square Enix, a player finishes area A and has the choice of visit areas B, C, or D in any order. To make sure everything progresses smoothly no matter which choice players make, each area will automatically balance its content commensurate with player levels.
Combat Gets A Revamp
One of the biggest complaints about FFXIV of late his how samey all the classes feel. All tank, melee DPS, ranged DPS, and healer abilities feel like palette / flavor text swaps of the same four-five basic actions. It seems Square Enix have heard these gripes, revealing the new “evolved” combat system for Evercold which seeks to return a sense of individuality to the job classes by streamlining their abilities (which, in turn, helps out newer players by cutting down all the buttons and ability rotations they have to learn.) Square Enix hasn’t shared the “evolved” forms of every class yet, but there are a few out there with breakdowns of how the new abilities and combos will work. But if you’ve grown too used to the way things have always been done, FFXIV will keep the old ways in place with “reborn” mode.
Grinding Down The Grind
Evercold will also rearrange how players spend their time to cut down on the massive grind as players level multiple job classes at the level cap. Currently, to keep up with the choco-bonses you have to complete daily quests to amass the currency you use to buy higher level gear. That system will go away in favor of a weekly system in which you choose quests you can complete on your own time that’ll award you activity points…used to buy higher level gear.
Another time sink is acquiring high level gear across multiple classes. It is tough when you play more than one job class, as each one requires a different set of gear and you gotta work for all that shit. Evercold attempts to cut through that never-ending hamster wheel by allowing players to “reflect” their gear with the highest item level (essentially the highest tier of gear you own) to their other max-level job classes. It won’t work for further gear enhancements like materia, so you still gotta work for your best-in-slot stuff, but it should still make it easier to bring your second and third job classes up to speed.
Chocobros!
Your chocobo companion is your trusty steed. You do everything together with one big caveat, you can’t take them into dungeons with you. Evercold will change that, updating the companion system to allow chocobos as combat party members. This means, if you really hate waiting in the duty finder queue, you can run a dungeon with just one other person, your two chocobos taking up the final two slots.
