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Huge announcements about Stormblood are coming from the annual Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest in Tokyo, Japan, as well as the expansion’s launch date and the new Red Mage class.
Yoshi-P revealed plenty regarding Final Fantasy XIV’s Stormblood expansion, but the highlight had to be the announcement of one of the new classes. Red Mage will be available with the release of Stormblood, the fan-favorite that goes all the way back to the original Final Fantasy RPG. Red Mage is a powerful hybrid spellcasting class, that focuses on high-speed positioning and chain-spells. And naturally the Red Mage’s weapon will be the rapier, along with a special new magical crystal.
As usual, Yoshi-P teased that the next class will be revealed as well. His t-shirt this time featured Spider-Man, which so far is perhaps the most mysterious tease from Yoshi-P. Usually his hints are rather on the nose. Fans have come up with several theories as to what it could mean. The most popular theory believes the class is the Samurai, due to the fact that there’s a popular Japanese samurai version of Spider-Man. Other theories say that Spider-Man is an acrobat, so it remains to be seen whether the class will be an Acrobat or a Dancer.
A couple of release dates were also announced during the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest keynote, including the big one – Stormblood’s. The Stormblood expansion will release on June 20 in 2017. Before Stormblood launches, Square Enix has a few more major patches to launch. 3.5, which concludes the Heavensward events and starts the events of Stormblood, is divided into two parts. Part one launches on January 17, a new year surprise, while part two will split the difference and launch in March.
There were lots of other Stormblood reveals during the keynote as well. The new 24-man Alliance Raid is named “Return to Ivalice” and it’s designed by Final Fantasy XII and Tactics Director Matsuno. And a new Raid Series called The Bend of Time will star Omega Weapon. A new underwater beast tribe of lamias was shown called the Ananta, who worship the Primal Lakshmi. That’s connected to the feature addition of swimming and diving in Stormblood.
Final Fantasy XIV is available now on PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. Stormblood, the second major expansion of the MMO, will launch on June 20, in 2017 for PC and PlayStation 4. PS3 support will be ending with the launch of Stormblood.
