Yoshi P on the Eve of Heavensward

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward launches in just a few short days, and yet the team at Square Enix was busy showing the game off to press, fans, and other industry types at E3 2015. We asked Yoshi P why they're so crazy, and the answer was simple: they’re very proud of what they’ve done, and they want to show it off.

Genese and I, along with a colleague from OnRPG sat down with Yoshi to talk about Heavensward, the direction of the game, and why it's been so successful. First and foremost, we asked about the 3.0 new player experience and how things are changing.

Essentially, if you've never played FFXIV or if you left, when 3.0 launches (whether you have the expansion purchased or not), you'll find the 1-50 experience far more inviting. ffxi gil. On player feedback and with the goal of getting players to the new content as fast as possible, Square has made it so that all you need to do to get from 1-50 is follow the main story.  The side quests and leves are all there still, but you don't need to play them to get to 50 and get prepped for Heavensward content.  On top of this, higher level players can now join lower level players to power them through the harder quests and content as well.  And by the time you finish the pre-expansion story, you'll have Item Level 110 gear to help you get started in Heavensward.

We asked if Heavensward intentionally focuses on what ARR did so well with 2.0, and the answer was yes. With the exception of the new flying mounts and content, the goal is for Heavensward to deliver more of what people love from ARR. But moving forward, Yoshi-P teased that we can expect a lot more new experimental features and types of content in future 3.X patches.