10 Years Ago Today, Final Fantasy XIV Destroyed Its World to Build a New One - Gizmodo

Ten years ago, successful a cataclysmic rainfall of flaring energy, Final Fantasy XIV died. That’s some existent successful the consciousness that the onshore of Eorzea was raked with the almighty megaflare of 1 of Final Fantasy’s astir almighty beings, the dragon Bahamut, and that developer Square Enix unopen down the servers of its troubled MMORPG for good.

The motorboat of Final Fantasy XIV had been an unmitigated disaster, and astir cratered the workplace down it successful the process. But adjacent arsenic players gathered successful cities and fields to regard up astatine the entity awaiting Bahamut’s reckoning, plans were underway to rehaul the MMORPG entirely, relaunching it arsenic Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn—a crippled with the implicit other communicative of the archetypal XIV. It was a chaotic occurrence that is inactive going beardown to this day, and apt for the foreseeable future.

But what makes XIV 1.0's shutdown truthful memorable—beyond the occurrence communicative it became successful A Realm Reborn—is that this was much than the extremity of 1 crippled and the commencement of another, a sad, quiescent shutdown earlier a vaunted relaunch. Final Fantasy XIV’s inheritors had clip to program the archetypal version’s extremity and pave the mode to their caller version, and successful doing truthful created an epic last communicative for players to witness, 1 that went connected to echo passim the decennary arsenic A Realm Reborn’s agelong communicative played out. The determination to not conscionable shutter Final Fantasy XIV but to rebuild it into an wholly caller crippled was made the twelvemonth earlier 1.0 would yet end, and successful the clip given, its caller producer—Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida, who inactive helms the existent mentation of the crippled and is moving connected Final Fantasy XVI—made the prime to retool 1.0's archetypal communicative to archer a communicative of apocalyptic proceedings.

The happening astir Final Fantasy is that the apocalypse happens each the time. Almost each introduction successful the crippled franchise’s past has tackled immoderate benignant of perchance world-dooming threat, and its heroes person prevailed, due to the fact that that’s what Final Fantasy heroes bash erstwhile they’re not summoning gods oregon moving successful the rigorous hairsbreadth attraction routines required to look similar Kain Highwind oregon Squall Leonheart. The menace of Meteor successful Final Fantasy VII, the emergence of Kefka’s godhood successful VI aft helium sundered the world, the conflict against Sin successful X, clip and clip again Final Fantasy is simply a communicative of myriad warriors and mages coming unneurotic to look a fated extremity and contradict it. The extremity of XIV’s archetypal signifier was a accidental to archer that communicative wherever its heroes, the remaining players, did that and lost.

1.0's extremity is heralded by a tiny reddish moon—the artificial conception Dalamud, summoned by Final Fantasy XIV’s superior villains, the Garlean Empire, successful an effort to devastate the onshore of Eorzea earlier its forces swept successful and seized the ashes for themselves. As players and the leaders of Eorzea rallied unneurotic to combat backmost against the Garleans, what started arsenic a tiny reddish dot successful the skies got bigger and clearer as, spot by patch, Final Fantasy XIV went to its end. Even erstwhile the communicative climaxed with the decision of the Garlean commander, Nael van Darnus, astatine the players’ hands, they learned that it was a Pyrrhic victory: Dalamud would inactive fall, and the satellite would perish beneath it. In the last days and hours of the game, players took portion successful events to propulsion backmost against the invading Garlean forces, thrown into disarray by their leader’s death, a consciousness of dread successful the air—and the events kept going. Dalamud kept getting closer. Until, successful the last minutes, Dalamud’s fiery visage burned successful the skies with echoes of strange, ethereal music, and Final Fantasy XIV died with 1 past cutscene:

“End of Eorzea” is simply a six-minute epic astir dissimilar thing Final Fantasy XIV had seen, arsenic the forces of Eorzea, heroes and grunts alike, clashed with the Garleans. Dalamud’s existent intent was revealed—not a moon, but an past prison, lodging the almighty primal dragon Bahamut. Eorzea’s armies autumn to Garlean arms, our heroes—the aforesaid heroes that had heralded XIV’s accomplishment successful its original cinematic trailer beaten back. At the last minute, an enactment of supplication by your closest allies successful XIV, a radical known arsenic the Circle of Knowing, attempts to magically restrain Bahamut, lone to dramatically fail, and beryllium rewarded with the beast unleashing its astir almighty onslaught from the series, Megaflare—only this clip not wielded arsenic a subordinate fantasy, but a fearfulness to carve occurrence crossed the satellite they had failed to protect.

But of course, Final Fantasy XIV wasn’t ending forever. In the last moments, the Circle of Knowing’s leader, Louisoix Leveilleur, whisks the heroes distant to past the devastation Bahamut brings, truthful they tin re-emerge successful the remade satellite for A Realm Reborn. But the bequest of 1.0 ending similar it did didn’t conscionable linger successful that metatexual premise that players went connected adjacent aft the satellite itself was razed to the ground. The prime to rebuild Eorzea from apocalypse was woven into the communicative of its rebirth, its ramifications echoing not conscionable crossed A Realm Reborn, but each enlargement the revived crippled has had successful the past 9 years, arsenic Final Fantasy XIV kicked disconnected a whirlwind redemption arc to marque it 1 of the crown jewels of Square Enix’s library. The opus that plays to bid farewell to 1.0, “Answers”—composed by Final Fantasy fable Nobuo Uematsu—even became a captious portion of the astir caller of those expansions, Endwalker, framing a similarly apocalyptic narrative wherever the heroes of the remade Eorzea faced an almighty doom, lone this clip they defeated it, redeeming not conscionable the realm but the full world. A justness for the satellite they had failed to support each those years ago.

One of the astir compelling, endearing, and possibly daunting aspects of Final Fantasy XIV is that is an ongoing story, 1 that deals with highs and lows of stakes and escapade arsenic communicative cycles wax and wane, and 1 that is steeped successful a benignant of past astir unprecedented successful the satellite of games beyond it. Its players person taken their quality connected a travel that has been going connected for astir a decade, and immoderate of them—players of the archetypal XIV who brought their characters over—for adjacent longer. Making the decease and rebirth of the crippled a cardinal portion of that basal story, and having it echo each the mode up to XIV’s latest apocalyptic event, is simply a important portion of what makes its occurrence communicative truthful miraculous successful the archetypal place. Not galore games get the 2nd accidental Final Fantasy XIV got, whether successful the existent satellite oregon successful the onshore of Eorzea itself, but taking that communicative of nonaccomplishment and weaving it into 1 of redemption is simply a fascinating portion of what makes it specified a compelling crippled successful the archetypal place.

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