Final Fantasy XIV is known for its long-running storyline, which continues with each addon. Here is the first part of the absolute highlights that MeinMMO author Irina Moritz has compiled after many sleepless nights.
The story of FFXIV has stretched over 10 years, counts about 1,000 individual quests, hundreds of hours of gameplay and countless cutscenes. It can be really sluggish and lackluster at times, but its peaks have left many a FFXIV player, and even the boss himself, in tears and emotionally exhausted.
In this article, I’ve rounded up the top 10 that made the biggest impression on me and that I’m still thinking about days later. Most of them are based on the fact that you have already made a long journey through the story and have grown fond of the NPCs in it.
It wasn’t easy to pick just 10 of the many moments that really were the best. So I’ve settled on just the main story, with no side quests, and 2 moments per addon. It’s also not a ranking, otherwise we’d be sitting here until January.
Danger: Of course, this article contains heavy spoilers for the full story of FFXIV. So if you’re still interested, you should definitely wait to read it.
A Realm Reborn: Raid on Solar Wind
The raid on Solar Wind, the headquarters of the Dawn Covenant, was a pivotal event in A Realm Reborn and very well timed. The player character is on the road for a long time beforehand to do a lot of (sometimes annoying and irrelevant) quests.
The player characters search for wine, pass some random trials, travel halfway across the world just to face off against the Primae Titan. But when they defeat him and return to the solar wind as great triumphers, they find it utterly devastated. Because in their absence, the enemies didn’t just sit around and rehearse their evil monologues.
In a flashback, Livia sas Junius and her soldiers brutally murder the members of the League.
In a flashback, one sees the gruesome slaughter that took place in the headquarters in the absence of the warriors of light. It’s at that moment that it becomes clear that we’re not dealing with the clichéd “Muhaha!” villainswhich are about as dangerous as Team Rocket.
The raid on the solar wind was the first big shocking moment in the story and that’s why I remembered it. While I didn’t have a particularly deep connection with the NPCs at the time, the whole Save Eorzea thing became 100% personal after that.
A Realm Reborn: The Bloody Banquet
While the story of FFXIV is ongoing and the addons build on each other, they still have an “ending” and a transition to the next addon. A Realm Reborn laid the groundwork for this right away when it transitioned into Heavensward with patch 2.55 over 8 years ago.
And what a transition it was. A Realm Reborn was good at giving players the illusion of a perfect world. You were the hero that everyone thought was great and about whose actions songs were written. The Garlear were driven out, Primae defeated, everything seemed perfect. In fact, it’s almost boring.
But slowly, as the patches progressed, the feeling that something was wrong crept in. This culminated at the end of the storyline into the greatest betrayal within FFXIV. Your comrades turned against the League of Dawn and the player character was accused of murdering the Sultana of Ul’dah.
The murder of the Sultana is blamed on the player character and one has to escape from Ul’dah.
Within a few cutscenes, FFXIV took everything away from me. It was by far the worst defeat I’ve suffered as an FFXIV player. Not only was the Sultana dead, her faithful follower and good friend Raubahn had his left arm chopped off live and in color.
During the escape, all friends gradually stayed behind to stop the pursuers, only for the player character to escape. For a long time after the bloody banquet, no one really knew if they were alive or gone forever. So the wait between A Realm Reborn and Heavensward really wasn’t easy.
Heavensward: The Death of Haurchefaunt
The developers of FFXIV are good at introducing NPCs into the story that come across as completely unimpressive at first glance. They give the player a few quests, maybe they play a part in some cut scenes, but you actually assume that that’s the end of it.
Accordingly, I and probably hardly anyone expected that Haurchefaunt would not only quickly become an important NPC, but would also cause many tears within the FFXIV community.
Its story ties directly into the brutal ending of A Realm Reborn. He ensures that players find sanctuary in Ishgard and stands out for his positive nature and support. He ends up sacrificing his own life to save the player character.
Here, too, the developers use the death of a character to make things personal for the player. While the noble aim of Ishgard was to end a thousand years of war, it was not personal until Haurchefaunt’s sacrifice.
I also think that very few players expected this death. At least it turned out that the Sultana wasn’t poisoned after all and the situation seemed to be improving a bit.
That shock moment made a good chunk of FFXIV story fans (including myself) paranoid. Years later, popular characters like the Exarch feared they might die at any moment.
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Heavensward: The Liberation of Estinia
Patches numbered X.3 have been special in FFXIV for years. They are always first-rate and mark the final end of the current addon’s story. I always eagerly await these updates and many others feel the same way.
But it all started with Heavensward’s bombastic patch 3.3, which provided the basis for this. In the story of 3.3 there is a decisive fight against the vengeful spirit of the dragon Nidhogg, who wants to destroy the nation of Ishgard.
In return, he takes control of the body of Estinien, a good NPC friend with whom you go on a journey in Heavendward.
In an epic duel on the bridge to Ishgard, first the brothers Hraesvelgr and Nidhogg fight each other, but after Hraesvelgr is defeated, the player character comes to the fore in a badass moment.
But the real shock comes after defeating Estonia, who is obsessed with Nidhogg. In a desperate attempt to break the dragon’s control and remove its eyes from its armor, the player character receives unexpected help.
The two deceased characters who sacrificed themselves, Haurchefaunt and Ysayle, return one last time to save Estinia. It’s still by far one of my favorite moments in the FFXIV story five years later and a worthy conclusion to an epic story arc.
Stormblood: The Liberation of Doma
The Stormblood addon was unfortunate enough to appear after the extremely popular Heavensward and is not held in high esteem by many FFXIV players. I’m not a huge fan of Stormblood either, but it still has a few moments where its story really shines.
One of them is the liberation of Doma from the rule of the Garlear and above all from the cruel Vice Regent Yotsuyu, who torments the people there every day and is supposed to break their will. Yotsuyu’s setup as a villain, it hits the spot right from the start, and towards the end of the cut-scene I was really looking forward to hitting her in the future.
The final battle for Doma Castle was therefore a highlight. You stormed the dungeon, there were explosions and buildings collapsing everywhere and you would finally be able to settle accounts with Yotsuyu.
The battle was won, but not without a heavy price. The ally character Gosetsu, who has been accompanying players since A Realm Reborn, was buried under the rubble of Doma Castle along with Yotsuyu.
I enjoyed the Doma arc and characters far more than the Ala Mhigo part of Stormblood’s story, and the bitter defeat of the Garlear was the absolute highlight of it.
More highlights from Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker will follow in the second part of the list on Monday, June 13th.
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