Last weekend, Square Enix used the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2026 to drop a bunch of news for the long-running MMORPG—chief among them, details about the next expansion. Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold is due out in January 2027, and it looks like it’s going to make some big changes to the game’s well-established formula.
As well as the usual level cap increase (to 110), two new jobs (a tank and a ranged damage dealer), and new areas, towns, dungeons, and raids, Evercold will completely overhaul the Final Fantasy XIV battle system with its new Evolved mode. In this mode, job actions will be streamlined to reduce button bloat, with things like 1-2-3 combos being mapped to a single button, and some skills being combined into a single move with different effects depending on your target. At the same time, this mode will put a greater emphasis on job identity, with the goal of making each individual job feel unique—a direct response to growing criticism of the increasing homogenisation of FFXIV‘s jobs.
For players who prefer things as they are, there’s Reborn Mode, based on the current combat system and job mechanics. You’ll be able to freely switch between modes at any time while not in combat—a nice choice to have, although it does raise some questions about what this means for game balance and encounter design going forward. The two new jobs will be Evolved Mode only, so that might end up being the de facto standard mode, although producer/director Naoki Yoshida stressed that existing jobs’ Reborn Modes won’t be sidelined, and will continue getting updates.
There will also be some changes to things like endgame gear progression (weekly quests instead of daily quests!) and to share item level between jobs so that you don’t have to gear every role separately to play high-level content. Major content updates will follow a season structure to give players clearer information about what’s coming when, but there won’t be any extra cost or season pass associated with that (thankfully).
Evercold‘s alliance raid series was also revealed: a crossover with Neon Genesis Evangelion called EVANGELION – Ghosts of Desire. This won’t be available at Evercold‘s launch, but will be introduced in stages over the course of the expansion’s life cycle—three separate 24-player raids released a few patches apart, if it follows the pattern of previous alliance raids.
Lastly, Square Enix finally announced the long-rumoured Nintendo Switch 2 version of Final Fantasy XIV. It’s due out in August this year, with a free early access period (for all Nintendo Switch 2 players, not just those with existing FFXIV subscriptions) a month before launch. The catch is that the Switch 2 version will have a separate subscription, unlike the other platforms that all share the same monthly fee. Players with active subscriptions for other platforms will get a 50% discount on the Switch 2 sub, and you won’t need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but it’s still going to mean players wanting to play across Switch 2 and other platforms will be paying a bit more. Apparently it’s something that Square Enix and Nintendo have spent a lot of time negotiating, according to Yoshida.
In the meantime, Final Fantasy XIV continues with the just-released Patch 7.5 adding new main scenario quests a new trial, and the third part of the Echos of Vana’diel raid. This will be followed by a few minor patches later in the year adding things like the beastmaster limited job and Dancing Mad (Ultimate) trial.
