FF14 Evercold Launch Date, Zephyr Job Revealed

Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida announced the dates at Fan Festival Tokyo. Evercold will enter early access on Feb. 19, 2027, followed by its full release on Feb. 23. The schedule is later than the end-of-January window previously planned.

“We put forth every effort to get this done at the end of January,” Yoshida said. “This is being done to make sure we can deliver on the many promises we’ve made. We appreciate your understanding as we near the finish line.”

Yoshida also revealed Zephyr, a ranged physical damage job that uses a crossbow and fights with an avian companion called a Nephele. The job comes from the northwestern mountains of Ilsabard and can be learned in Gridania. Like Bastion, the other new job in Evercold, Zephyr begins at level 90 and uses Evolved Mode.

Zephyr’s abilities focus on coordinated attacks, party support and evasive movement. Visna, the pink-haired Miqo’te introduced in recent story content, will present the job. The event confirmed Baldr as the name of the red-haired Roegadyn connected to Bastion. Another new character, Lagertha, was identified as the first mate of Naglfar, the Water ship.

Evercold will add five large areas based on elemental ships. Sessrymnir, the Earth ship, contains fields, mines and underground tunnels. Skiðblaðnir, the Wind ship, features wind-powered technology and introduces the Köttr, a dwarf-like cat race. Hjartadunur is a settlement with tall flowers and a large central pit.

The two main towns will have jumping puzzles. Yoshida said the team had heard that similar activities in Dawntrail were too easy and would make the new puzzles more difficult. After the opening area, three zones can be visited in any order. Their enemies, quests and three associated dungeons will scale to the player’s level.

Evercold will expand the Adventurer Activity screen with repeatable standard missions and weekly missions. The weekly system is designed to reduce the need for daily activity. Players who reach the weekly rewards limit will be able to claim rewards from a previous week if they missed them. “Seasons” will refer to two-patch cycles and will not require an extra fee.

All jobs will have Evolved Mode at launch. Players will be able to copy their highest item level to other max-level jobs, although difficult content will still require gear with suitable secondary attributes. A new benchmark is planned for December. It will include the expansion’s character creation options, including contact-lens-style eye colors and action skins for selected teleport and combat animations.

Gauntlet of Power will be a four-player boss-rush activity for players level 51 and above. Groups can include players at different levels, and encounters will adjust accordingly. Each run can include up to five randomly selected bosses from a pool of more than 200. Players can vote after each fight on whether to continue, and the system will avoid bosses that someone in the group has not previously encountered.

Alliance Raids will be split into two parts, with two major boss encounters in each part. Eight-player Savage Alliance Raids will begin with the Evangelion crossover Ghosts of Desire and are planned to have difficulty similar to the third fight in a Savage Raid tier.

The first Final Fantasy VII-themed raid tier in Beyond the Lifestream is titled Fated Collision. Normal mode is planned for patch 8.01, Savage for patch 8.05 and Fierce one week later. Savage rewards will use personal loot, with each participant receiving a trade-in item for a selected gear piece.

Pre-orders begin Nov. 4 and include a Wind-Up Köttr minion and Halone’s Earring, which provides an experience bonus. Regional matchmaking tests will begin in North America and Europe on Nov. 10 and in China on Dec. 1. Planned updates include auto-remounting, wider Duty Support options, Chocobo companion changes and interior housing-size customization in patch 8.1, followed by a housing interface overhaul in patch 8.2.