Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is an emotional culmination of a decade-long journey

Filed under:Thou must live, die, and knowThe easiest way to describe Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is to call it a game about hope. (Not Final Fantasy VIII, though — that game is about child soldiers and hot dogs.) However, despite Endwalker’s unflagging commitment to “the power of friendship,” it’s the game’s unvarnished look at the other side of hope — oppressive and omnipresent despair — and the real strength it takes to maintain that hope in the face of such despair that makes it the best Final Fantasy experiences I’ve had in 30-plus years of the series’ existence. Major Endwalker Spoilers throughoutTo all of my children in whom Life flows abundantTo all of my children to whom Death hath passed his judgmentThe soul yearns for honor, and the flesh the hereafterLook to those who walked before to lead those who walk afterIn Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, the latest expansion of the Final Fantasy XIV MMORPG, your character and their rag-tag group of mercenaries for hire masquerading as a benevolent, non-governmental organization are tasked with averting the second occurrence of The Final Days, an apocalyptic event that sundered the world and all its people a millennium or so previous. Endwalker, more than any of Final Fantasy XIV’s expansions, feels so alive I barely noticed the extremely late sleep-deprived nights I spent working my way through it.Walk free, walk free, walk free, believe...The Land is alive, so believe…The technical and financial limitations of video game development mean that the way stories are written and how characters act rarely reflect how real people behave and how real emotions are felt. The game remembers the sadness you felt in that moment and brings it back for you to feel again multiple times though it’s been several years and two expansions since, the same way real grief can suddenly reappear unbidden.Suffer (Feel) Promise (Think) Witness (Teach) Reason(Hear) Follow (Feel) Wander (Think) Stumble (Teach) Listen(Speak) Honor (Speak) Value (Tell) Whisper (Tell) MentionEndwalker also exhibits what authentic growth as a person looks like. “Everything will be OK so long as you believe.” It’s a philosophy that takes the act of faith for granted without confronting the reality of how hard it is to believe in the face of the relentless suffering life throws at you.Throughout your journey in Final Fantasy XIV, your character endured prolific suffering and loss.Endwalker doesn’t blindly ask of you your faith. I didn’t know who any of the characters were, nor did I care about them, but I still cried as a woman sang, lamenting their pain and suffering.In Endwalker, one of the first songs you hear isn’t the song “Footfalls” from the trailer — it’s this song “Answers” from nine years ago.Final Fantasy XIV game director Naoki Yoshida said that Endwalker would be the conclusion of the story begun in A Realm Reborn — the story begun by this trailer. I don’t need a video game to teach me a lesson, especially if the lesson is essentially “Life sucks, and then you die.” But it’s nice to have a game that acknowledges shit sucks without overselling its misery while also ending on a hopeful note.In one fleeting moment, from the Land doth life flowYet in one fleeting moment, for anew it doth growIn the same fleeting moment thou must live, die and know