Final Fantasy 14's huge update goes live today, adds a FF12-themed raid

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Return to Ivalice in the new raid created by Yasumi Matsuno himself.

Final Fantasy 14: Stormblood was an incredible journey when I reviewed it back in the summer. But since seeing the credits roll on the main story quest, players haven't had all that much to do outside of raiding and leveling up other classes. That changes today with the release of update 4.1, The Legend Returns, which introduces the first 24-player raid inspired by Final Fantasy 12, a bunch of new story quests, and the new Japanese-themed housing district Shirogane.

Let's talk about the raid first, since it's easily one of the coolest features in The Legend Returns. Called Return to Ivalice, this raid was written by guest creator Yasumi Matsuno, the creator of Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy 12 with boss designs done by Keita Amemiya who created the amazing creatures found in Shin Megami Tensei 4. This raid takes players to the city of Rabanastre, which any Final Fantasy 12 fan will recall with a great deal of fondness.

The other big addition that has players frothing with excitement is the new Shirogane housing district set in the Japanese-themed capital city of Kugane. Shirogane has 12 wards where players can purchase houses big and small (for an exorbitant amount of gil, mind you) and is the first new housing district in Final Fantasy 14 since the originally three were added years ago. Expect those plots to be bought up immediately.

Update 4.1 also adds a bunch of new story quests that directly continue the events following the end of Stormblood. Along with that, there's a new dungeon, a harder version of the Shinryu primal fight, a new beast tribe to curry favor with for fun goodies, and a huge list of balance tweaks and smaller changes. For a full list of everything new, check out the patch notes here.

Steven Messner
Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.