Final Fantasy XIV: While you were crying in Endwalker, I grinned at myself

For a week now, pre-orderers have had access to the new Endwalker add-on from Final Fantasy XIV and are busy playing through the story that leaves many of them in tears. MeinMMO author Irina Moritz, on the other hand, smiled (almost) all the time.

On December 3rd, all Endwalker pre-orders were given access to the new content of the add-on; many of them immediately jumped into the story. I was also one of the lucky ones who had managed to escape the lousy Error 2002.

Endwalker sent me and other players on a journey of emotions, on which I grinned and laughed countless times because the story warmed my heart in the cold times.

Bad omens before the release for story lovers

The Endwalker addon faces the rather unique task of completing an 11 year old story. Such an event should of course take place with a lot of fireworks and excitement.

Accordingly, the director of the MMORPG, Naoki Yoshida, made extremely ominous remarks in various interviews before the release. Players shouldn’t be so sure that nothing will happen to the main characters in the story, says the boss. And the Endwalker launch trailer also gave the feeling that there was a lot of blood flowing in the add-on.

So some players mentally prepared for Endwalker to be a massacre. There will be characters left and right to die, there will be innocent victims, the world will burn and we will lose many good NPC friends.

It’s an experience that FFXIV players have had in previous addons. For example when the popular NPC Haurchefaunt was killed or when the Ascian Elidibus, who was actually an enemy, was defeated. These scenes moved many a player to tears.

Part of my work at MeinMMO is that I always keep an eye on the gaming community (preferably both eyes, actually). After all, we want to know what’s going on with gamers. And around Sunday the first posts came in the FFXIV bubble from the players who had finished the Endwalker story.

Sometimes people played for up to 40 hours straight because they really wanted to see the end. And many of them had tears in their eyes on the trip because they were so upset by the events in the story.

Endwalker delivers exactly what I expected and wanted

Gaming as a hobby has been with me, like many of you, throughout my life. And while I like to play (almost) all kinds of games, I especially like them when they have a “message”. A message that is conveyed through the story or the gameplay and which, at best, makes me smile.

Such games include the Mass Effect Trilogy, Undertale, Journey and of course FFXIV. From the beginning, the story of the MMORPG has been motivated by kindness, understanding and, above all, hope.

The hope that everything will be fine in the end. That despite all the problems and suffering, there are still beautiful moments in the world. And it was with this conviction that I went to Endwalker. No matter what Yoshida or the trailer suggests, everything will be fine in the end.

I stuck to my conviction throughout the entire add-on, even if the situation very often seemed hopeless and hopeless.

First you are confronted in Garlemald with the suffering of the residents there. The evil Garlear are suddenly no longer the merciless conquerors and oppressors, but defenseless people in need. But because of their experiences and state propaganda, they would rather die than accept outside help.

It seems like there is no way to get through to them. And yet you make it in the end, even if you couldn’t save each of them.

When the end of the world breaks out and Thavnair is overrun by monsters, the situation is even more desperate. Humans turn into monsters and attack their friends and relatives, who in turn become desperate and become monsters.

But here, too, there were always moments that were full of hope. Despite horrific scenes, there was something good to be drawn from the situation that helped move on.

And every time the situation turned for the better, I partied and grinned like a fool. Because it was just nice to see that one had not hoped for nothing. And with every difficult situation that one was able to overcome despite everything, the hope grew stronger that one would still be successful in the end.

In places I was as happy as a little child because Endwalker carried me away. There was no time for tears. There were tons of problems to solve and the end of the world to be prevented.

And while the path to the grand finale was littered with tragedy, it only added to my resolve and grin in the end.

I also loved the fact that there wasn’t a real “bad guy” to destroy. It was very much in the spirit of FFXIV. It showed that problems don’t have one major bad cause that needs to be eliminated, and then all is well.

The world is a complicated place and to shift everything to one person or entity would be far too easy and would not show the necessary respect to the structure of over 10 years of story.

I knew the FFXIV team wouldn’t give us a bad and depressing ending (you probably knew too) and wasn’t disappointed.

FFXIV – Mein “Happy Place”

These happy endings are one of the reasons why FFXIV has been my “happy place” for years. You will probably know it: Gaming as a hobby is a form of escapism. Especially in the last few years there has been bad news about the pandemic and other problems in the world almost every day. Something like that really pulls you down.

And when you are in gaming communities every day, negativity overwhelms you. There are always complaints, anger, frustration and even death threats against developers.

But I refuse to get angry about my hobby. What good is a hobby that puts me in a bad mood and that makes me just upset? Then I can hit myself in the face right away.

That’s why FFXIV has become a kind of “safe haven” for me over the years. Whenever I notice that my mood is sinking, I log into the MMORPG and go on a tour of discovery through various player houses. The concentrated load of creativity that is put into some houses is simply great to see.

Or I can get creative myself and look for cool locations for nice screenshots. Or I just hang out in a hub city, watch the people and listen to music. There is just something therapeutic about being able to switch off in a game.

And especially when bad news and anger are the order of the day, a nice story about hope like in Endwalker can be like balm for the soul. She encouraged me in my daily endeavors to pay more attention to good things and to be happy about small positive things. That helps a lot.

And I’m not alone with this. People long for happy endings. That’s why we love reading fairy tales or watching classic Disney films. They bring positivity and beautiful feelings into our often gray and frustrating everyday life.

For me and many others, FFXIV has become our “happy place” where we log in to relax. And Endwalker reinforced this feeling thanks to his hopeful and positive story and warmed the heart.

Of course, not all is peace, joy, pancakes. Is it nowhere. There are problems like Error 2002, there are complaints and annoying players. But it’s OK. It’s something that I can take calmly because the positive experiences outweigh the rest.

And in the end everything will be fine, as always.

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