Square Enix just blew the lid off at Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival in Anaheim, announcing Evercold as the next expansion, set to debut in January 2027. But that wasn’t it, as they also detailed countless fan-pleasing features, improvements and more during a two hour keynote, including an Evangelion Crossover Alliance Raid, a Nintendo Switch 2 port, Shadowbringers being added to the Free Trial and more.
Evercold will be the start of the Godless Realms Saga story arc, with the teaser giving us a glimpse of what awaits the Warrior of Light.
A new alliance raid is also coming to Evercold, but this one has a major difference, as it’s also a crossover with the Evangelion anime, which is being created in collaboration with Khara Inc.
Digging deeper into the expansion, Evercold will bring a battle system overhaul with two distinct modes. Reborn will continue to be based on the current combat system and jobs, while Evolved will put more emphasis on job identity. New jobs will only be playable using Evolved mode, so consider this giving players notice on a new style of play going forward. They will demo this during Day 1 of the Fan Festival here.
Elsewhere, Evercold promises:
- Two new jobs: tank and physical ranged DPS
- Level cap increase from 100 to 110
- New cities
- Distinctive new areas
- New gigantic constructs and other monstrous threats to overcome
- New allies to encounter
- New dungeons
- New trials
- A new raid series
- A new Ultimate raid
- PvP updates
- Ongoing content updates, including new gear and crafting recipes, updates to the Duty Support System and more.
There will also be a new seasonal structure for rewards and character growth, an armoury update to accommodate those with multiple jobs, and more character customisation options.
On the path to Evercold and Patch 8.0, there’s still content coming through the rest of 2026 with version 7.5x. These include:
- Patch 7.5 (releasing April 28) – New main scenario quests, new Trial, and Echoes of Vana’diel Part 3
- Patch 7.51 (releasing June 2) – New Cosmic Exploration Star “Auxesia,” new Custom Deliveries: Tiisol Ja, and Dancing Mad (Ultimate)
- Patch 7.55 (releasing July 28) – New updates to Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures quests, the debut of Occult Crescent: North Horn, and new Phantom Weapon quests
- Patch 7.56 (releasing Sept. 8) – New main scenario quests and introduction of beastmaster
And now should also be a great time to get into the game from scratch. The Free Trial edition of Final Fantasy XIV will be expanded on 28th April to include the third major expansion, Shadowbringers, including all content up to Patch 5.58. This means there’s hundreds of hours of the game to try out, with no limits on playtime, you’ll just be a good few years behind the current content.
And finally, while the writing is now on the wall for PlayStation 4 – they said that they anticipate the game will cross the technical size limit on PS4 around the time up version 8.3 in roughly two years time – a new game path is opening as Square Enix has now confirmed that Final Fantasy XIV is coming to Switch 2 in August. Head here for more details.
Source: press release
