The base game has changed a lot over the last year and has effectively transformed itself into the ultimate Final Fantasy themepark. For those that have been eyeing up those chocobos from the sidelines, well, there’s no escaping the catching up you’ll have to do, but that shouldn’t put you off. If you already play FFXIV then Heavensward gives you even more of what you know and love.
The new Alexander Raid is yet to be added, and substantial updates have been promised further along the line to keep adding to the story. The amount of new things to do on offer is equal to that of the base game, which is a huge feat for an expansion, and there’s still plenty more on the way. There’s a lot on offer here, and while I sunk over 40 hours into the main story line I have yet to see the end of it. It’s the little changes like this to an already successful formula that keep the new dungeons fresh. Instead of smacking mobs into submission and then moving on, there are now dragons changing the field with their burning breath, or secret passageways hidden behind bookshelves to contend with. The new dungeons are all welcome additions, each adding further environmental twists. Flying makes even the most mundane of delivery quests a real joy. Taking to the skies is glorious: the trees of the Chocobo forest and the fluorescent pompoms of the Churning Mists make for splendid spectacle. It does start to feel dull as you run from one end of the map to the other doing classic MMO busywork-slaying five Bandersnatches here, setting three chocobo traps there-but once you get them all and you finally take flight all of that tedium is forgotten. Some are dotted around the hills and obscure high points, while others are unlocked during quests. You’re stuck on foot until you unlock all of the aether currents in any given area to ‘learn’ what the surrounding winds are like. It’s a real shame that you can’t take advantage of that flight-based design straight away though. Camps pepper the snow-besieged hills of Western Coerthas, while the Sea of Clouds swims with tiny Islands waiting to be explored.
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The new areas are vast and designed to take full advantage of the new flying mounts. Unless you really want to play as the new scaley Au Ra race, you can wait until you’re ready before spending your cents on Heavensward. It will take you a while if you’re starting as a completely new player, but the journey is well worth it, and boosts can help first timers level-up quickly and cut dungeon queue times. Given the pre-expansion revelations in the city of Ul’Dah that saw your friends in dire straits, it’s a fittingly frosty start, but to see it you’ll have to have complete the main questline of A Realm Reborn and all of its subsequent patches first.
Taking you into the heart of the once sealed-off city of Ishgard, Heavensward opens on a solemn note. Where TESO fails to marry the expectations of single-player Skyrim with a world filled with other people, FFXIV and its expansion succeed. Its first expansion, Heavensward, adds a huge new section to the map of Eorzea, the power of flight and several new classes without tipping those finally balanced scales. FFXIV has long balanced the trappings of a traditional Final Fantasy game with the demands of the MMO format to great success (let’s forget about its very first iteration A Realm Reborn erased all of that bad blood long ago).
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