Final Fantasy XIV Berlin Fan Fest Keynote Provides More Evercold Details

Square Enix opened this weekend’s Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2026 event in Berlin with a keynote presentation by Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida, with Translation Supervisor Michael-Christopher Koji Fox. The keynote saw him provide further details on the Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold expansion, announced at the previous Fan Festival in Los Angeles, beginning with a new extended trailer. The expansion is planned to release in January 2027.

Evercold continues the “Godless Realms Saga” that began with the events of Dawntrail. Similar to Shadowbringers‘ the First, Evercold takes players to the realm known as the Fourth, a reflection of Hydaelyn that has fallen to ruin and is succumbing to encroaching ice. As a result, its people have moved to the skies, living upon five great airships known as Realmships. However, the Fourth faces a new threat, with the Warrior of Light required to travel to it and become the “Far Wanderer”. Players will find out more details when through the main story content coming in Patch 7.56 on September 8, 2026.

 

 

As previously teased, Evercold will add two new Jobs to the game, a tank and a physical ranged DPS, with the first job revealed during the keynote. The Bastion is a tank job that strikes foes using two large shields, shown being used by one of the major characters in the expansion’s trailer, with a blend of high fantasy and mechanical aesthetics. It takes the main tank role, and as a new job will exclusively use the new Evolved Mode for the Job Action system, with its twin shields known as the Skyltborg. It will start at level 90, with its unlock quest available at Limsa Lominsa. The Skyltborg can transform between quick melee strikes and powerful long-range aetherial blasts. The Bastion is able to protect themselves and their allies with defensive and curatives boons.

The keynote teased some of the locations players will visit in the Fourth, with heavily draws from Norse mythology. Naglfar is the Realmship of Water and features plains, hills, and cliffs alongside plenty of lakes and streams. The giant crystal at the centre of the ship is known as the Ark Crystal, serving as a vital part of the ship and playing a key role in the expansion’s story. The main player town on Naglfar is Fargarth and is contained within a protective barrier. Meanwhile, Hringhorni is the Realmship of Fire and has a much more mechanical appearance, with rivers of molten metal and numerous foundries, but still has its own forests and lakes.

 

 

Noaki Yoshida discussed some of the system updates associated with the main story content. Rather than being fully linear, Square Enix is planning to open up the expansion’s main story to allow players to progress select parts in an order of their choosing following the initial onboard quests. For example, in previous expansion stories all players would begin in Area A before moving through Areas B, C, and D in that order. However, Evercold will permit players to progress through those areas in whichever order before moving onto the next act. To account for this, the expansion will feature automatic difficulty and level balancing for the fields and dungeons impacted, as well as adjusting quest rewards.

The change comes alongside the new brand-new Adventure Activity UI first revealed at Los Angeles, which aims to move away from the current daily-based timing and reward system for content, like the Duty Roulette, to a weekly-based system. This system will give players missions or duties to let them engage with different parts of the game and reward them with Activity Points, which can be used to unlock gear and other rewards. There will be new ways for players to raise their Item Levels, with fuller details to be revealed during the Tokyo Fan Festival on October 31-November 1, 2026.

Other reveals noted from Los Angeles are the concept of seasons, which largely acts as a recategorisation of the current system of post-launch patches. Each season is effectively the equivalent of an even and odd patch from the previous system; for example, Patch 7.2 and Patch 7.3 constitute a single season, so Evercold and its following major patch will be the first season. There will also be a new Job Action system for the game’s combat, which features Reborn Mode (current) and Evolved Mode (new). Square Enix will provide details on the changes for jobs in detailed programming over the coming months. The game’s armoury system will receive a significant update, with the game’s current system of players needing to raise the Item Levels for each Job being replaced. Players will still need to level up jobs, but the new system will let players “reflect” the Item Level of their highest gear to other Jobs (not including elements like materia), allowing them to potentially run content in other Jobs without needing to spend longer getting their gear up to scratch.

 

 

Evercold will also introduce Character Action Skins, which let players unlock action animations — teleporting, emotes, etc. — that let them further customise their characters. Players can acquire new variant animations that they can assign for their character as rewards. It will start with an initial set of general actions, with the team will be expanding this system to include more actions and job actions starting from Patch 8.1, potentially including bringing back fan favourite job actions that were previously removed as animations. Other expanded character customisation options to be included at launch for Evercold include a colour picker for eye, hair, and skin tones; improved eye and lip customisation; and face paint layering, plus the option to toggle certain parts of individual gear pieces on or off. There will also be additional race-specific options introduced from Patch 8.1. Final Fantasy XIV’s public fields are planned to receive content updates, expanding special content like that found in Eureka into regular zones, with more details to be revealed at a later date. The team is also looking at improvements to quest systems, such as optional movement or guides towards quest destinations.

In Raid content changes, Evercold will introduce a new third difficulty for eight-person Raids that will sit between the current Normal and Savage difficulties, and is intended to act as a stepping stone between them. Savage difficulty rewards will continue to offer high-end Raid gear as as a direct reward. The new difficulty will add a new type of reward known as Season gear, which can be gradually upgraded and will be detailed at a later date. It is not required to be completed in order for players to be able to take on Savage difficulty.

Additional content updates include the regular level cap increase, this time from 100 to 110. Treasure Hunts, FATEs, and the Hunt will all receive new content for Evercold and are planned to receive their own evolutions and adjustments. There will be a similar amount of new dungeons as with previous expansions, as well as new gear and crafting recipes, various new enemies, and a new Ultimate Raid. Meanwhile, the game’s Duty Support system will also receive an update alongside an overhaul of the game’s Chocobo companion starting with Patch 8.1. Players will be able to bring Chocobo companions into instanced dungeons, with light parties of two players and two Chocobos, and the Chocobo breeding and summoning system will get a full refresh. A new twenty-four-player Alliance Raid is in production — a crossover with Evangelion titled “Ghosts of Desire” — with animator Mahiro Maeda working on the content as a guest designer.

Noaki Yoshida also revealed the theme of the game’s new eight-player Raid series. The series is titled “Beyond the Lifestream” and, as the title suggests, is a collaboration with Final Fantasy VII. As with previous series’, it will come in three tiers, with the first releasing in Patch 8.01. It will include all three difficulties, with its story created by Motomu Toriyama and the Final Fantasy XIV scenario team, with Kazushiga Nojima acting as story supervisor and Tetsuya Nomura acting as art design supervision. In another collaboration, a new attraction will be added to Final Fantasy XIV’s Gold Saucer on October 28, 2026, which adds a Final Fantasy VII-themed keyboard typing game for up to four players called Keybound Brawler.

 

 

The keynote provided a quick update on Final Fantasy XIV’s Nintendo Switch 2 release. The Switch 2 version will release on August 4, 2026, with a one-month free trial. Pre-orders will start later today. The Nintendo Switch 2 will require a separate dedicated subscription to other platforms, which share a single subscription, but will it will not require a Nintendo Switch Online membership, and those with a subscription on another platform will get a 50% discount.

Finally, Square Enix announced the Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold Collector’s Edition. The Edition features special box art from Yoshitaka Amano, a Reaper figure, an Ethos metal keychain, a Köttr mini plush, a tapestry of the Fourth, in-game Final Fantasy XIII Valhallar Odin mount, in-game entreat crystal emote, and Crystal Skyltborg weapon.