Final Fantasy XIV continues its celebration with Fan Festival Berlin. Earlier this year, the first of three Fan Fests in 2026 took place in Anaheim, revealing the name and some details of the next expansion, Evercold. The event takes place over two days and includes dev panels, cosplay contests, a concert, and a keynote where all the most important details are shown.
Opening the event, a new extended trailer for Evercold was featured, showing more of the new locations, characters, and jobs in the expansion. As tradition, Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida appeared on stage cosplaying the next job/class, Bastion. This new job is a Tank that uses two greatshields, together known as skyltborg, for both offensive and defensive abilities. Additionally, new animations for all jobs will be added with the Character Action Skins, which include new animations for actions such as teleporting.
For the Alliance Raids, at the previous Fan Fest a collaboration with Neon Genesis Evangelion was revealed, and today it was confirmed that director and animator Mahiro Maeda, who worked on Mad Max: Fury Road as a concept artist and designer and on EVANGELION: 3.0 +1.0 THRICE UPON A TIME, will be assisting in the collaboration. As for the next collaboration, it was revealed that Final Fantasy VII will be joining with a Raid Series, FFVII-inspired rewards, and a Gold Saucer mini-game: Keybound Brawler. This new mini-game will arrive this October.
Other announcements from Berlin’s keynote include:
- New Areas in the Icebound Realm of the Fourth: Naglfar, the Realmship of Water; Hringhorni, the Realmship of Fire; and Fargarth, a new city.
- Chocobo Companion System Overhaul: Beginning with Patch 8.1, we’ll see expansive updates to chocobo companions, including an overhaul of the chocobo raising system, as well as the ability to call forth your chocobo to assist you in dungeons.
- Nintendo Switch 2 Version: Available for pre-order now; the Free Trial, Starter Edition, Complete Edition, and Dawntrail will launch on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026
- Same-Region Player Matching – Patch 7.5x: Matchmaking will expand across entire physical data centers rather than being limited by logical data centers, beginning with Japan in mid-October and North America and Europe to follow.
- Evercold Collector’s Bundle, which includes a collection of physical items: the Evercold Special Art Box, Expertly Crafted Reaper Figure, Ethos Metal Keychain, Köttr Mini Plush, and Tapestry of the Fourth.
For more Final Fantasy XIV news, stay tuned to GameObserver.
ObserverCrew Picks
bserver
