Heart Of Darkness

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers is an emotionally-charged and cathartic climax.

- Steven Messner

Final Fantasy XIV used to be my favourite MMO that I hated to recommend. Playing it requires an enormous investment of time – at least a few hundred hours to get caught up – and even though I love it, I worried that others might ultimately find that long journey boring and unsatisfying. But after beating Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion, those worries are gone.

Shadowbringers is the Avengers: Endgame of Final Fantasy XIV, an emotionally stirring climax that draws on six years of character development, storytelling, and worldbuilding to weave an epic, dimension-spanning story rooted in the relationships of its chief characters.

If you’re not familiar with Final Fantasy XIV’s story, it’s difficult to describe Shadowbringers’ premise without spoiling everything that comes before. With three expansions and hundreds of hours of story under its belt, the world of Final Fantasy XIV is so complicated and nuanced you should be able to get a degree in its history. It’s intimidating to newcomers – especially because the first part of the game’s overarching narrative is a slow burn – but as a long-time player I love how rich and vast the world and its characters have become.

The gist is that, after the events of