10 Years Ago Today,Final Fantasy XIVDestroyed Its World to Build a New One

Ten years ago , in a cataclysmic rain of flare up vigour , Final Fantasy XIV died . That ’s both dead on target in the sense that the land of Eorzea was rake with the almighty megaflare of one ofFinal Fantasy ’s most powerful being , the dragon Bahamut , and that developer Square Enix shut down the servers of its troubled MMORPG for good .

The launch of Final Fantasy XIV had been an unmitigated disaster , and closely cratered the studio behind it in the physical process . But even as players gathered in metropolis and fields to gaze up at the sky await Bahamut ’s enumeration , plans were afoot to rehaul the MMORPG solely , relaunching it as Final Fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn — a game with the complete opposite story of the original XIV . It was a wild succeeder that is still going strong to this daylight , and likely forthe foreseeable future .

But what makes XIV 1.0 ’s closedown so memorable — beyond the success story it became in A Realm Reborn — is that this was more than the remainder of one game and the start of another , a lamentable , placid shutdown before a vaunted relaunch . terminal Fantasy XIV ’s inheritors had time to plan the original rendering ’s end and pave the mode to their newfangled version , and in doing so created an epic final story for player to find , one that hold up on to resound throughout the decennary as A Realm Reborn ’s foresightful story played out . The decision to not just shutter Final Fantasy XIV but to rebuild it into an entirely new biz was made the year before 1.0 would ultimately cease , and in the sentence given , its new producer — Naoki “ Yoshi - P ” Yoshida , who still helms the current variation of the game and is puzzle out on Final Fantasy XVI — made the choice to retool 1.0 ’s original chronicle to severalise a tale of apocalyptic minutes .

Screenshot: Square Enix

The thing about Final Fantasy is that the Book of Revelation happens all the time . Almost every entry in the game enfranchisement ’s chronicle has tackled some kind of potentially globe - dooming threat , and its heroes have prevailed , because that ’s what Final Fantasy heroes do when they ’re not summoning gods or working in the rigorous hair’s-breadth care number required to depend like Kain Highwind or Squall Leonheart . The scourge of Meteor inFinal Fantasy VII , the rise of Kefka ’s godhood in VI after he sundered the world , the battle against Sin in X , time and fourth dimension again Final Fantasy is a story of numberless warrior and mages coming together to face up a doomed end and abnegate it . The goal of XIV ’s original variety was a chance to order that narration where its Hero , the continue players , did that and lost .

1.0 ’s goal is heralded by a small reddish moon — the hokey construct Dalamud , summoned by Final Fantasy XIV ’s primary villains , the Garlean Empire , in an attempt to waste the land of Eorzea before its forces embroil in and seized the ash tree for themselves . As players and the leader of Eorzea rallied together to fight back against the Garleans , what get down as a small crimson dot in the skies got bigger and clearer as , patch up by patch , Final Fantasy XIV went to its end . Even when the account culminate with the defeat of the Garlean commander , Nael van Darnus , at the players ’ hands , they learned that it was a Pyrrhic triumph : Dalamud would still fall , and the world would perish beneath it . In the final 24-hour interval and hours of the plot , player took part in event to push back against the overrun Garlean forces , thrown into muddiness by their leader ’s end , a mother wit of dread in the melodic phrase — and the events maintain going . Dalamud keep getting tight . Until , in the terminal minutes , Dalamud ’s ardent countenance burned in the sky with echo of strange , aery medicine , and Final Fantasy XIV died with one last cutscene :

“ End of Eorzea ” is a six - minute epic almost unlike anything Final Fantasy XIV had seen , as the forces of Eorzea , hero and grunts likewise , clash with the Garleans . Dalamud ’s straight purpose was reveal — not a moonlight , but an ancient prison , housing the all-powerful primaeval tartar Bahamut . Eorzea ’s armies fall to Garlean subdivision , our Hero — the same Hero of Alexandria that had heralded XIV ’s arriver in itsoriginal cinematic trailerbeaten back . At the final minute , an act of prayer by your close allies in XIV , a radical known as the Circle of Knowing , attempts to magically restrain Bahamut , only to dramatically fail , and be rewarded with the beast unleash its most powerful attack from the serial publication , Megaflare — only this time not wield as a musician fantasy , but a horror to carve fire across the world they had bomb to protect .

Screenshot: Square Enix

Screenshot: Square Enix

But of track , Final Fantasy XIV was n’t end forever . In the last moment , the Circle of Knowing ’s drawing card , Louisoix Leveilleur , whisks the hero away to live the ravaging Bahamut brings , so they can re - emerge in the remade world for A Realm Reborn . But the legacy of 1.0 ending like it did did n’t just linger in that metatexual premise that players went on even after the world itself was razed to the terra firma . The choice to reconstruct Eorzea from apocalypse was woven into the story of its rebirth , its ramifications echo not just across A Realm Reborn , but every expansion the recreate secret plan has had in the last nine years , as Final Fantasy XIV kicked off a whirlwind buyback arc to make it one of the crown gem of Square Enix ’s library . The song that plays to bid farewell to 1.0 , “ Answers”—composed by Final Fantasy legend Nobuo Uematsu — even became a lively part of the most late of those expansions , Endwalker , framing asimilarly revelatory narrativewhere the heroes of the remade Eorzea faced an all-powerful doom , only this fourth dimension they defeated it , saving not just the realm but the entire world . A justice for the world they had go to protect all those year ago .

One of the most compelling , lovely , and perhaps daunting aspect of Final Fantasy XIV is that is an on-going story , one that deals with highs and lows of stakes and dangerous undertaking as story bike wax and wane , and one that is steeped in a form of history almost unprecedented in the world of games beyond it . Its players have taken their fibre on a journey that has been going on for almost a decennary , and some of them — players of the original XIV who brought their characters over — for even longer . cause the demise and Renascence of the biz a fundamental part of that foot history , and having it resound all the room up to XIV ’s up-to-the-minute apocalyptical event , is a crucial part of what makes its success story so miraculous in the first lieu . Not many game get the second chance Final Fantasy XIV got , whether in the literal reality or in the land of Eorzea itself , but taking that write up of failure and weaving it into one of salvation is a fascinating part of what create it such a compelling game in the first place .

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Screenshot: Square Enix