Stormblood
Stormblood or 4.0 is the 2nd expansion for Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn. Release Date: June 20th, 2017. Pre-order date: January 24th 2017.
Features
- Stormblood will take the players to Ala Mhigo.
- Main focus is to regain control of Ala Mihgo from the Garlean Empire.
- Level cap is increased to 70.
- New Job: Red Mage (Ranged DPS). Another job possibly hinted at with a Spiderman t-shirt worn by Naoki Yoshida at the 2016 Tokyo Fan Festival. The 2nd confirmed Job is the Samurai (Melee DPS), which was announced at the 2017 Frankfurt Fan Festival.
- End of PlayStation 3 support.
- 20 years have passed since Garleans had control of the region.
- Main antagonist to be Zenos Yae Galvus, XIIth Legion Legatus and de facto ruler of Ala Mihgo.
- The main city in Stormblood is Rhalgr's Reach, the headquarters of Ala Migho's main resistance.
- Warrior of Light's main job in 4.0 is Monk, similar to DRG for Heavensward.
- More actions for each job to go with new level cap.
- Overhaul of the battle system. Exact details unknown as of yet, but Accuracy is being removed as an idea of what to expect from this overhaul.
- Additional Skill System to be overhauled, with skills shared by roles instead of jobs, and can choose from shared role ability options.
- Reassessment of unused/ineffective actions.
- Adding new UI elements for Jobs.
- Example used is Dragoon's Blood of the Dragoon buff, where in 4.0 an icon/gauge showing how much time is left will be better visible on screen.
- New Areas to be introduced, comparable in size to Heavensward areas.
- Stormblood will be a full standalone game's worth of content.
- Swimming and Diving are added.
- New Beastmen Tribes such as The Ananta who worships Lakshmi, the Lady of Bliss.
- New Primals to be introduced, including known names and all-new original-to-FF14 ones.
- New Dungeons to be introduced with new battle and dungeon concepts to be introduced.
- New High-end raid The Bend of Time where players battle Omega. It has different story depending on difficulty, with normal on odd patches, savage on even.
- New 24-player raid is called Return to Ivalice. Ivalice is the setting of Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story.
- Expanded form of Exploration to be introduced: The Forbidden Land of Eureka, something different from Diadem and will expand its own entire area, unique to Stormblood. Examples of what might be in here: Notorious Monsters that could only appear once every 72 hours, and the Stormblood "Relic Weapon" quests taking place here as well.
- New Gear and Recipes, including winners of the Fan Gear Design Contest.
- Item Inventory Expansion, looking to increase "as much as humanly possible."
- A 4th Residential Area to be added. Where? "Sorry, can't tell ya."
- Indications are that Ala Mihgo is crossed via Baelsar's wall in The Black Shroud, which will be shown in Patch 3.5.
- Ala Mihgo will not be just deserts and wasteland. Forests are also part of it.
- All areas of 4.0 will be accessible by flying mounts, but there was an indication that it will again by quest-based like in 3.0.
- Changes to Windows version Minimum Specs requirements; Current minimum specs are geared towards components you can't even buy anymore. "If possible, please upgrade to a 64-bit OS" but they will still support 32-bit. They just suggest 64-bit will be best gaming experience.
- They've been examining numbers and have seen a large migration of PS3 to PS4 so they have decided it is the right time to end PS3 support. To show appreciation to their PS3 fans that helped them get to where they are now, there will be a special FREE upgrade campaign for players who own the game on PS3, so they can get the game for free on PS4.
- 2017's Frankfurt Fan Festival introduced two new major towns. A new player hub: the port city of Kugane and the town of Doma
Theme Song
- It was revealed in the 2017 Frankfurt Festival as Revolutions via Nobuo Uematsu, with Susan Calloway to be the artist of choice.
