Stormblood is the Next Expansion for Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV has been going strong for more than a year now since the 2015 release of its first expansion Heavensward. At the Las Vegas Fan Festival on Friday, the developers unveiled the trailer for their next expansion: Stormblood.

The trailer opens on the rocky cliffside of an undisclosed East-Asian location. We see a large stone statue and a mysterious woman in red performing what seems to be a mixture of martial arts and dance within the open palm of the enormous statue. We see another man sitting atop one of the fingers of the statue who is then attacked by the dancing woman. The man is revealed to be the perennial representation of the player in all of the trailers: everyone’s favorite Hyur.

The two begin a hand-to-hand sparring match which lasts for the rest of the trailer. Briefly, we are shown a village at the base of the mountain and a villager cleaning a canon, perhaps preparing for a battle.

Just before the title reveal explodes across the screen, both our Hyurian Hero and our Mysterious Dancer lunge at one another, ready to strike their own decisive blow. The words dance across the screen: Stormblood.

During the keynote following the teaser trailer reveal, Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of Final Fantasy XIV told us that the expansion would be set in the nation of Ala Mihgo — which is fighting for its freedom from the Garlean Empire. Just as Heavensward was a Dragoon-centric expansion, Stormblood will be Monk-centric.

Yoshida refrained from naming what the new job additions would be, but he did say there would be multiple new ones. He pointed to his t-shirt of Marvel’s Scarlet Witch and said it was the only hint he would give. Many fans have suggested that it means we’re finally getting Red Mage as a class. The actual lady in red that we saw however, seems to be fighting differently from her Monk counterpart, and many have suggested she might be a Dancer, another hotly anticipated class for the MMORPG.

Whatever Stormblood has in store for us, the teaser trailer is exciting enough to get my blood pumping for the game again!