Here is a summary of Naoki Yoshida's Keynote speech during the Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) FanFest 2023 in London. The Keynote contained information about the upcoming Dawntrail expansion, as well as some small updates that are coming soon.

Right before the London Fanfest 2023 keynote speech, FFXIV showed the second teaser trailer for its upcoming expansion, Dawntrail, with a release window of Summer 2024. This teaser trailer is an extended version of the original teaser trailer and showcases additional scenes with all of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. It also showcases the upcoming melee DPS: the dual-wielding Viper.

Naoki Yoshida walked in on stage dressed up as the new class, shortly followed by Michael Koji Fox. They welcomed everybody to the venue and the Fan Festival, before getting started with the FFXIV London FanFest 2023 Keynote.

They started the keynote by showing off the new Viper job. This is an FFXIV original job, meaning it is not from other Final Fantasy games. The job was specifically designed for the game and was an answer for players who were asking for another dual-wielding class other than Ninja. It is a DEX melee job and uses the same armor as Ninja. There are no job requirements for the job, but does require players to both own Dawntrail, as well as have a job at Level 80. The starting location for this Job is Ul'dah and starts at level 80.

When separate, Vipers can carry out quick attacks to put pressure on enemies. When combined into one long weapon, they instead deal mighty blows. Additionally, they can also temporarily empower themselves to deal faster and stronger attacks. As for the Magical DPS, it will be revealed during the Japan leg of the Fanfest. Yoshida does mention however that his hint in Vegas refers to said job. He is likely referring to the T-shirt he wore during that time.

They then moved on to talking about the game's story, first giving a recap of what we know so far from the Las Vegas Fanfest. That is, the Warrior of Light, as well as the other Scions of the Seventh Dawn, will be heading to Tural to help in the fight for succession. They also reiterated that the Scions of the Seventh Dawn will be on different sides during the expansion. How they are divided, as well as who is in which group, will become clear once players play through the expansion.

The duo then moved on to the main city hub for the expansion: Tuliyollal, which is “very different” from previous ones. They even prepared some special in-game footage of the city, which features its ports, streets, buildings, and more. The city even comes with a beach. They mentioned after the video that Soken, the composer for a lot of FFXIV's music, wanted everyone to know that the music in the video is just a mock-up and not the final BGM.

Afterward, they dived deeper into details about the city, before continuing into the new areas coming to the game. They started by first talking about Yak T'el and Urqopacha, which were touched upon in the previous Fanfest. They also showed off in-game footage of said areas, showing the Warrior of Light going through Yak T'el first, then in Urqopacha.

They then featured Kozama'uka, a tropical region found south of Tuliyollal. The location has a lot of rivers and streams, as well as waterfalls. The rocky area that players can see in the teaser is located in Kozama'uka. They showed screenshots from the tree-filled lower area, both during the day and at night.  They then showed off an arid desert region, Shaaloani. They censored a part of the image with “Secret” because that area is very important to the Dawntrail's Main Scenario Quests. This area has Ceruleum deposits, which brought some changes to the area, including railroads and settlements. The screenshots they showed are very reminiscent of Wild West-era towns and railroads.

Afterward, they touched upon the Allied Tribes that players will encounter in Tural. The first are the Moblins, which resemble the Goblins of Eorzea, but are pretty different. They reside in the jungles of Kozama'uka, and are experts in procuring any useful materials. They welcome skilled tradesfolk from other races, which means they will likely be the Disciple of the Hand/Land  (DOH/L)Allied Tribes for Dawntrail.

Moving on from the Allied Tribes, they then talked about the various system changes coming in Dawntrail. They started off by reiterating that the level cap in Dawntrail will increase to 100, with some fans in the venue shouting they want it to reach 2000. Other than that, there will be additional Core Battle Content, including FATES, Hunts, Treasure Hunts, and Quest-synced sidequests. There will also be new dungeons, with them saying there will be “at least as much” as previous expansions. That means there could be more. They then showed screenshots and art for the upcoming dungeons.

After showing the dungeon screenshots and dungeons, they then featured the new Threats players will face like a large enemy called the Eliminator. They followed this up by saying that Duty support will be available in all instanced dungeons in Dawntrail's MSQ. They then move on to some of the new gear players can get in the expansion, showing concept art for some DOH/L classes, as well as some of the combat classes. Afterward was supposed to be the new FFXIV Lifestyle Content, but YoshiP mentioned that the team thought it was not ready yet for the keynote, and as such it was not shown yet. They did mention that it was enjoyable by groups.

There will be new Variant Dungeons, a new 8-player Raid, as well as a new Ultimate Raid. There will also be a new Alliance Raid in Dawntrail. In fact, they revealed its title: Echoes of Vana'Diel, which is in alliance with Final Fantasy XI. They assured that fans and players of FFXI will be able to enjoy the upcoming Alliance Raid.

Of course, there are also ongoing content updates for the following:

  • Blue Mage Update
  • Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures
  • New Plans for Deep Dungeons
  • Gold Saucer Update
  • PvP Update

Additionally, they announced that in the latter half of the 7.X series, they will reveal a brand new Limited Job, similar to Blue Mage. A lot of fans at the event mentioned jobs like Beastmaster as the possible Limited Job. Other than that, they did not give any information about the new limited job.

They then talked about the first graphical update coming to the game. They mentioned that they took player feedback from when they first showed the graphical update and took steps to refine it. They brought up in particular the Au'Ra horns and scales. According to fans, they thought that the horns looked too enameled and reflective. As such they tweaked it a bit to make it look a little better, by fixing the reflections and shadows of the horns and scales.

They also announced FFXIV 1.0-based model adjustments. YoshiP explained that during the launch of A Realm Reborn, they repurposed models from the original version of the game to use in the relaunch. They in particular brought up Lalafells, which used a low-poly model to help with system load to some extent. This led to some weird bumps and shadows on character models. The graphical update aims to fix most, if not all, of these weird bumps and shadows. In light of the graphical updates, they once again revealed the updated system requirements for FFXIV once Dawntrail rolled around.

Afterward, they talked about the content still coming to FFXIV during the 6.X period. First is the Open Beta for the Xbox version of FFXIV, which will run from the middle of January until February. They also revealed the FFXIV leg of the Fall Guys collaboration. The Collaboration will come out on October 31, 2023, during the launch of FFXIV Patch 6.51. Players will be able to take part in the Fall Guys-inspired content in the Gold Saucer. Up to 24 people can participate in the stages. It will, however, be on a seasonal cycle. Meaning that it will be available for a period, then be unavailable, and vice versa.

They followed the FFXIV keynote by announcing the Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XVI collab. YoshiP mentioned that the producer of FFXVI, Naoki Yoshida, finally gave the go signal for the collab event. The event is titled The Path Infernal and will feature Clive Rosfield. The story for the event will not spoil the story of FFXVI. The event brings with it a Torgal mount, a baby Torgal minion, as well as Clive's costume from the game.

They also announced the Cloud Data Center Stress Test, which is planned for approximately November 21-27, 2023. Here are some of the details they revealed:

  • Physical Location: North America (East Coast)
  • Restrictions: Newly created characters only
  • Character data will be deleted at the end of the test
  • Data Center Travel will be unavailable
  • Back Up configuration settings feature will be unavailable
  • Temporary features:
    • All participating characters will receive Tales of Adventure Items for the MSQ and all jobs
    • All players will receive 50,000,000 Gil

More information about Dawntrail will arrive during the Tokyo Fan Festival on January 7, 2024. They closed the keynote speech by welcoming Hironobu Sakaguchi, the Father of Final Fantasy, on stage. They revealed that Sakaguchi is a fellow Warrior of Light, and has been playing for around two years. Sakaguchi gave some closing words for the FFXIV Keynote, thanking everyone for playing the game. They also welcomed the rest of the development team on stage to officially open the FFXIV London Fanfest 2023, and end the Keynote speech.

That's it for our summary of the FFXIV London Fanfest 2023 Keynote speech. Check out our gaming news articles for the latest in gaming news.