Final Fantasy 14 is still going strong. During the keynote address at the 2026 Anaheim, California, Fan Fest, Square Enix announced that we were getting a new expansion in Evercold in January 2027. That reveal was pretty monumental, but we also got a ton of info on other aspects of FF14.
That includes the estimated window for when PlayStation 4 service will end, the announcement of a Switch 2 edition of the game, and an Evangelion crossover raid series. It’s a lot to sift through, but we managed to break things down with Square Enix directly and get to the bottom of a few of these sweeping changes.
We had the chance to chat with Naoki “Yoshi P” Yoshida live atFan Fest to see what the team had in store for the Evercold expansion, which arrives next year. Way more so than Dawntrail, it seems like Evercold really is a new era for the game.
Evercold is an interesting name for an expansion, and Yoshida told us how the title came about, even throwing in a few rejected titles for prior expansions.
According to Yoshida himself: “The title Evercold, before we settled on that, there was another candidate we had…but that’s happened many times in the past. For example, when we were coming up with Stormblood, one of the names that came up was Rebellion, but that was rejected for various reasons, including legal reasons…it was already taken.”
He muses on other rejected titles, including one for Evercold: “Shadowbringers, we thought about Darkbringer, but that was rejected as well. For Endwalker, the other candidate was World’s End, but that was not possible either. With this expansion, I wanted to go with Absolute Zero…but that was rejected as well.”
In our Q&A, Yoshida was asked if the expansion was Norse-inspired, and he let a bit of cool info slip: “We tried to obscure that it was Norse-inspired…that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t list any names or proper nouns in the keynote presentation and I think you’ll start to realize that when we reveal more. If you want to look into the culture surrounding [Norse history] you’ll find even deeper references.”
As for why Yoshida and his team chose two original jobs for Evercold, he gave us an interesting answer: “Whenever we release a new expansion and select jobs…a good chunk of the player population seemed to prefer the DPS role over the tank and healer, so we make it a point to always introduce one DPS job based on our data and our numbers. For the remaining tanks and healers, it gradually became an order [of swapping tank and healer]; we’ve determined which roles we’re going to implement. With 8.0 we’re looking at ranged DPS.”
He continues talking about the process of job selection: “Once the roles are decided, the battle system planners…go into sort of a bidding or pitching phase of the job. For example, with a tank, what kind of weapon will they wield, what kind of gameplay experience will our players have? With tank…I think we had five ideas pitched among the team. Out of those we pick what would be the more interesting experience.”
This time things are a bit more complicated: “Sometimes it’s pitched with an existing Final Fantasy job name, but this time the ideas that were pitched were very unique, and were not based on any legacy Final Fantasy job. We wanted to prioritize that unique feeling. It’s important to keep evolving, but it wasn’t necessarily because of the theme for Evercold.”
While Evercold itself looks great so far, all eyes are on the Evangelion collaboration. When asked, Yoshida was tight-lipped on details beyond what we saw in the keynote address, but he did give us a brief answer: “We actually spoke with Khara Inc about this. The information we could reveal was already at the keynote…that said we’ve been working with Khara Inc very closely, at a very rapid pace to announce this, so I’m relieved that we’re able to get the information out.”
He teases that more info is on the way: “I’ve been looking at the reaction on social channels, and while people are surprised, they’re very excited about it, so I’m relieved. We are working on new designs and artwork and things like that and we’re preparing information to reveal at the Europe [Berlin] and Japan fan festivals.”
Yoshida talked at length about the Switch 2 version of the game, and whether mouse controls were fully confirmed, and viable: “Yes, it is possible. I haven’t tried going into a savage raid with mouse controls yet, but because you can use a controller, I would prefer [that]. Of course I’m sure you’re all aware, the Switch 2 is a wonderful console, and you can choose the way you want to play. People who play Savage raids would likely hook up their mouse and keyboard and play it on the TV. ”
He continues talking about the Switch 2, specifically performance. “I’ve already noticed some comments on social media talking about the specs…I want to be honest, we are working hard on the optimization for [Switch 2] so we’re striving to get the best performance. With towns, you may see a lower framerate because there are so many players, but we’re still able to reach 30 frames per second at a stable rate. In duty content, performance isn’t something that you won’t have to be worried about.”
Shifting gears a bit, Yoshida talks about the PS4, and how the advent of Switch 2 support had nothing to do with the eventual sunsetting of FF14 on PS4: “While we were going to fully support 8.0…the reason why we’re looking to transition from the PS4 to the PS5 is because of the hardware limitations of the PS4. So it’s the size of the game that’s causing that hurdle right now. Sony has been kind to continue their support, even though we’re reaching toward the limit of that capacity.”
Yoshida and his team have their hands full with the new dual-playstyle system. Half of it involves the old-style play, and the other half is a brand-new combat system that will debut in 8.0. According to the man himself, work began on this system in earnest over a year ago:
“I talked to the assistant director and the battle director, about one and a half years ago. The biggest challenge that we faced was time. We already started work on the next step shortly after 7.0. Tomaki was designing the individual jobs for the new system, but he also had to work on encounter team tasks, including checking balance and difficulty levels. He was also working on PVP, and working in parallel, so time was a challenge. We are tracking to release the new battle system with the release of Evercold.”
Yoshida then made a really out-of-left-field segue. He asked for a raise of hands as to who played* Star Wars Galaxies*, and how he doesn’t want to repeat that game’s mistakes: “They took an existing system and changed it to something entirely new, and players did not take that very well, and people have been referring to it like a very tragic incident. Counting from the original 14 we’ve been around for 15 years, so we’ve been building this game together with players worldwide. We are going to continue adjusting and updating with 8.0.”
He continues: “With the Viper and Pictomancer jobs, I feel like we’re already stepping into that Evolved mode. With that knowledge we built we can start applying that to our existing jobs that we’ve had for many years.”
There are a ton of under-the-hood improvements to *Evercold *as well. Player matching is expanding in a huge way, and Yoshida couldn’t be happier: “Does anyone remember when we didn’t have a party finder in Realm Reborn. We had to build all these systems…and progress one step at a time. When we felt like we were ready to break down these walls [mass player matching], was about two years ago.”
Yoshida digs down into timelines: “What made this possible is that we were able to continue developing and gleaning knowledge. Changing out the [server] equipment started two years ago, and the coding started four or five months ago. I’ve always wanted to get to this point since Realm Reborn.”
Before 8.0 arrives, 7.0x, also known as the *Dawntrail *era, needs to close out. One of those closing performances will be a new Kefka battle. Why was Kefka chosen as the next Ultimate? Well, it’s a funny story, Yoshida says: “In terms of Ultimate content we have a very limited number of developers who have handled this content in our encounter battle team…because we have a limited number of people who can create Ultimate content, someone raises their hand and says they want to do it.”
According to Yoshida, all someone had to do was ask: “The person in charge of the Kefka raid chose Kefka and pitched it to me. He’s a very big fan of Final Fantasy 6, and he also worked on the Kefka fight in the Omega [raid], and said, ‘I can do something better, let me do Kefka again. It’s this almost unnatural love for Kekfa that brought this about.”
Where will the series take us beyond Evercold? Well, it won’t be a Final Fantasy 14 spinoff anytime soon. According to Yoshida, he has “thought about” a spinoff for Final Fantasy 14, but “considering how long we’ve been working on this game, we want to continue bringing even more people in so they can experience this game. I want to consider making a standalone Final Fantasy 14, but unfortunately, the only team that can potentially make the best standalone FF14 is the current FF14 team.”
He is saying there’s a chance, though: “If we ever retire from Final Fantasy 14 online, we could do it after our retirement. I’m half-joking and half-serious, actually. If someone wants to helm that sort of project, we would love to hear from you. As for a spinoff I’d love to take on that challenge.”
In 10 years, Yoshida has goals he’d like to achieve for the next era of Final Fantasy 14: “In terms of a goal…a goal to me brings to mind some sort of end point, and I can’t really imagine 14 going to an end, it’s my goal to keep 14 going, so maybe that would be my goal…even if I die or retire, 14 would continue without me. That would be my goal, to create that state so that it will continue to go on.”
He once again reiterates that Final Fantasy 14 is a long-term game: “Getting to the next 10 years would be a midway point, for 14 perpetually going on. Through Shadowbringer and Endwalker, we saw a climax to the story arc, so in the next 10 years, we would bring another climax that’s comparable or surpasses that previous 10 years.”
This is just the beginning of a year-long set of reveals for Final Fantasy 14: Evercold. The reveal came this weekend at the Anaheim Fan Fest, but more information is coming at the Berlin leg of the celebration, taking place on July 25 and 26. Later this year, on October 31 through November 1, we’ll get the Tokyo Fan Fest, and the full picture of Evercold will be complete. From there, it’s just a few months until the expansion.
As Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu noted at the tail-end of the Anaheim Fan Fest keynote, Final Fantasy 14 will be part of the company for years to come. Although a few of these changes look scary to long-term fans, the way the team explains them makes it seem like the game is still in great hands.
T for Teen - Language, Mild Blood, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
Originally the Crystal Tools engine, but currently it’s a custom engine using parts of the Luminous Engine.
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