Square Enix has announced that ‘Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn’ will be getting an expansion called ‘Heavensward,’ set to come out on June 23rd of this year. The expansion will introduce new zones, race, raid, three job classes, and flying mounts, as well as a level cap increase from 50 to 60. Coinciding with ‘Heavensward”s release, FFXIV will also be expanded to the Mac OS.
Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida explained that “there will be around 1.5 times as much area to explore in Heavensward’s new zones — while there may be fewer zones, there will end up being just as much traversable area in Heavensward at launch as in A Realm Reborn.”
Final Fantasy XIV recently reached a milestone of 4 million registered accounts, though Yoshida made it clear that their success hasn’t changed his team’s plans. “The number of subscriptions doesn’t necessarily affect the development of the game, since the number of people who can enter a certain zone or server is limited,” says Yoshida. “There may be opportunities to increase the number of servers to accommodate more players, but the content itself isn’t affected by the number of people playing.”
The new jobs, none of which requiring a base class, will be Dark Knight (a tank with magic-imbued greatswords), Astrologist (a healer/support deriving power from the stars, constellations, and Divining Cards), and Machinist (a ranged DPS who fights with guns).
The newest race, Au Ra, are a mostly humanoid race with scales, horns, and tails. The race has extreme physical differences between their sexes – the males are muscular and huge in stature, while the females are small, athletic, and elegant in appearance.
In their trailer “A Tour of the North,” you can get a sneak peak at the new locations ‘Heavensward’ will introduce. The locations range from expansive cities, huge icy landscapes, and floating cities in the sky. You can also see some of the new flying mounts in action, which includes griffins, dragons, and, of course, chocobos.
‘Final Fantasy IV: Heavensward ‘will be available on PS3, PS4, Mac, and PC. Again, the release date is June 23rd, with pre-orders starting on March 16th.
