A Busy Three Months Until Dawntrail

Over the weekend, Final Fantasy XIV Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P) announced the launch date for the game's next expansion, Dawntrail, at PAX East. The schedule of events planned leading up to the 2 July release is fairly busy, and not just with preparations for the next expansion. Players have a few key dates to pay attention to.

The first is when players can pre-order Dawntrail and get all the goodies. That day is ... today. Those who pre-order the expansion will receive a Wind-up Zidane Minion and Azeyma's Earrings. Usually the earrings will provide a levelling bonus to help get alt jobs up to the level cap and are available before the expansion drops.

For those ordering, just a reminder that the minimum and recommended specs on PC will increase from the current settings.

Minimum and recommended requirements for PC

One change announced at PAX East is the minimum CPU is now a Intel® Core™ i7-7700 or higher. The previously announced card not only had issues in certain combinations, but will no longer be supported for Windows.

A day after the Little Lady's Day and Hatching Tide event ends, the cross-over event with Final Fantasy XVI on 2 April. Players will want to partake of the event if only for access to the Torgal mount and Torgal Pup minion. In order to participate in the event, players must be at least level 50 and have completed the main scenario quest "The Ultimate Weapon". In addition to the mount, minion, and a four-piece set of armor, players can also obtain a Triple Triad card and 10 orchestration rolls. If the FFXVI cross-over event works like the one with FFXV, players will need to obtain a lot of MGP from the Gold Saucer. The event ends on 8 May.

Will players be able to pet Torgal?

Something not yet mentioned is a Moogle Treasure Trove event. These events turn up periodically when a content drought would normally happen. I can see the next Moogle Treasure Trove beginning on 21 May and ending when the servers go down for the Dawntrail launch.

A couple of more details about the launch of Dawntrail. The early access period for those who pre-order the expansion is Friday, 28 June. Yoshi-P played to the crowd by referencing the upcoming DLC for Elden Ring due out on 21 June. He told the audience he had planned to release Dawntrail one week earlier but was going to allow players to enjoy the new Elden Ring content for a week before putting them in a position to choose between the two games.

Finally, comes the price of the expansion. The expansion comes in four flavors.

For those who like physical items, the Collector's Edition comes with all the physical items and all digital items for $214.99. The Collector's Box by itself costs $155.00 and contains five items: Dawntrail Special Art Box, Expertly Crafted Viper Figure, Adventurer’s Cloth Map, the Unending Journey, and Adventurer’s Pen Case. I'm not sure if shipping and handling is included.

For those only interested in downloadable content, Square Enix provides two options. The Standard Edition costs $39.99 and just provides the base expansion. The Digial Collector's Edition costs $20 more and has three items: The ARK mount, Garnet minion, and a weapon for the new Pictomancer class, a Chocobo Brush.