Ambiguous screenshot time! Really I feel like there is almost nothing that I can actually talk about from Endwalker itself without somehow being at risk of spoiling something. This is definitely the sort of experience that you don’t want to spoil for anyone. I am now sitting at level 90 and have what feels like quite a lot of story left to go. There is one entire end game zone that I have yet to discover, and I am guessing that this sort of flow was planned as I am already wearing my set of artifact gear that I obtained at level 89. Instead of talking about the story itself I am going to talk this morning about a general thought process running through my head.
I am very drawn to calling Endwalker as the best Final Fantasy XIV expansion to date, but I find myself questioning if that is even a fair designation. It feels like if you had skipped the story all the way through A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers… would this one expansion be capable of standing on its own? I think it would still be a very interesting story being told, but so much of what is happening stands upon the shoulders of a decades worth of experiences. There are moments that draw back to Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 and major touchstone moments that draw upon our experiences from every subsequent version of the game. As a result the Endwalker story cannot realistically be divorced from the decades worth of content that brought us to this point.
I had very similar thoughts when the Marvel Studios movie arc resolved itself with Avengers Endgame. If you were to ask me the single movie in that series that I enjoyed the most… then I would say Endgame without a doubt. However it is also a movie that cannot possibly stand on its own merit because by the time we reached that conclusion a decades worth of prolific movies had taken place. Twenty two movies lead us to the conclusion of Avengers Endgame and so many moments within that movie only really make sense if you were there for the entire ride. Is the story itself interesting? Sure especially if you have watched its bookend Infinity War, but will it have near the impact if you were not in it from the beginning? Hell no, there is no way you could feel the summoned feelings if you did not at least experience the majority of the films.
So ultimately if you ask me my favorite Final Fantasy XIV expansion, I am going to say Endwalker. It is the pay off that comes at the end of a very long and winding journey. If you are NOT caught up with Final Fantasy XIV then I implore you not to rush the process. The payoff that comes in Endwalker is worth the wait and you need to have experienced the roller coaster of emotions that led us to this point in order to really appreciate the totality of this journey. Those of us who have been on this journey are finally getting so many things explained… that would have probably felt cheap if we had just jumped to the end of the novel and read the last page. This resolution is well earned and I cannot count the number of times I have found myself weeping tears of joy and pain over this game. By the time we reach this point it feels that we are adventuring with old friends, and not random characters in a role-playing game.
I look forward to reaching the actual conclusion of the game and seeing how all of the loose ends get tied up into a bow. I am also extremely curious what the .1 through .3 patch cycle is going to look like this time around. Lastly I am extremely interested to see what new story arc is spawned out of this expansion. It really is the close of everything that came before it and the beginning of an entirely new era of Final Fantasy XIV.
