Welcome back everyone. Normally we would have already had a nice blogpost about patch 9.1 of WoW, but it is still not ready. It should land on the PTR a little over a week from now. So instead let us look at another patch. Granted 5.5 isn't done either, but we've had a live letter that gave us a trailer and additional information. In short, it is going to be epic.
But you aren't here for the short version. You are here for the long one, so let's freakin go.
The trailer begins with something that sounds a lot like my new favorite track, I'm curious where it might be placed. Definitely not the new Dungeon Theme. Paglth'an is the home for the nomadic Amal'jaa, so a banger rock anthem wouldn't fit.
Next we have Fordola returning and giving Alphinaud a forceful shove. If we haven't done much side content we didn't see Fordola since Stormblood. Quite a lot of late Shadowbringers feels like Stormblood. It makes sense though. Before G'raha spirited us away we were fighting against the Empire, more specifically Zenos and Asahi. Now we are battling the Garleans again with Zenos and Fandaniel in Asahi's body as the main villains. I'm glad Fordola is joining us. Fictional wars are often black and white. We have clear good guys and bad guys. Also often the bad guys are ugly to make sure you identify them. Such was the case in Lord of the Rings, is in WoW, and 90% of the cases it is also true in Star Wars. So what happened with Fordola? Well Ala Mhigo was always a complicated place. The Eorzen Alliance was first formed to combat Ala Mhigo and its Mad King. They were seen by the continent at large as agressors. Pretty much everyone was glad when the king was overthrown by a rebellion. Problem is, one of the key figures of said rebellions was Gaius van Baelsar undercover. The leaderless tired Ala Mhigo was easy picking for the Empire. A lot of people fled ironically enough to the territories they used to threaten. And the people who stayed? Some supported the Garleans, some didn't. Fordola's father was the former. Unsurprising when you have a wife and a small daughter. People aren't prone to unnecessary heroics if they have a lot to lose. Of course the more rebellious people took issues with this and stoned him to death. Actually they wanted to stone Fordola (a girl of less than ten years) to death, but she was shielded by his father. This of course didn't endear the rebels to her. But Gaius supported her, so she was loyal to him. But no matter how hard she worked she was always treated as a second rate citizen due to many Ala Mhigans rebelling. This of course just fueled her bitterness. But she would help them without hesitation if they were in danger of being tempered by Primals and she were their only hope. Her story is amazing. And the same can be said about Alphinaud. When first meeting him he was a self important obnoxious twerp. This changed gradually as fate likes to punch him in the face. First his arrogance and naivity got all his friends murdered and him framed for the deed. In Heavensward he spends his time traveling, gathering firewood and doing all that adventuring entails, just like uneducated poor people. We also learn that he can't swim, he took up drawing classes to impress girls, he has no sense of finances due to his sheltered upringing and he is terrified of ghosts. All of which later becomes a plot point by the way. Some of them more than once. And the universe is not done with him. After the Fordola shove we see him trying to heal a soldier before stopping and punching the ground in frustration. Dang. Well serves him right. He is still an Arcanist, which is a base class. We know from Endwalker that he will pick up Sage, the new healer job.
By the way. This whole paragraph? It was about the first half minute before the title card.
Next we get another mix of the Bozja theme as we get a glimpse of the new area for the relic weapons. Zadnor isn't in Bozja proper. It is a plateau between Bozja and Dalmasca. It is there we will have the final battle with the IV Legion. More specifically on their airship which houses the Guard Scorpion from Final Fantasy VII and recurring boss Cuchulainn, the bane of everyone not irish. I think he is supposed to be called koohooolain. The Bozja series is interesting. I haven't gotten far, so most of what I know is form cutscenes, but that's beside the point. A recent interview revealed that 50% of players do Bozja. That is a pretty good number for an optional content. Because it IS optional even if some people don't realize it. Relic weapons are there to give a needlessly overpowere weapon for those who don't raid or do Savagre raids. Still, the exclusive story draws in many people. It is content like this that makes me hope that whenever FFXIV ends and the servers are shot down (an event that will not happen soon considering FFXI still receives content updates) it will be converted into a single player game without server issues and the meta to hold it back.
Next the scene cuts to Carteneau, the single most important place that never became an open world zone.
We also have more of Fordola who now talks with Estinien. Although it should be noted that trailers like to manipulate, by placing voiceovers onto different scenes. Likely Fordola is still talking to Alphie as I doubt a jaded dragoon like Estinien has a narrow idealistic notion of what a hero is. Also a warning, if you haven't done so yet, go play Final Fantasy IV. Or watch a walkthrough. Or just read one at least. But least do it. Endwalker has so many IV allusions, it is not even funny, and it shows in 5.5 as well.
We also get a nice glimps into the new NieR raid. And I say NieR raid instead of NieR Automata raid as one of the bosses is a shade from Reincarantion. Funny how this comes out so close to the NieR Replicant remake. Coincidence? I think not. The story implications for fighting a giant version of the machine network avatar red girl are interesting to say the least. Yoko Taro loves to mess with people and I wouldn't be surprised if finishing the raid once wouldn't end the story. All I know is that I will grind the fuck out of the Devola glamour outfit.
We also get a good look at Diamond Weapon as it casually dodges and kicks missiles. This time our mission is to capture the weapon instead of destroying it. The Sorrow of Werlyt storyline will end as we try to rescue at least one of Gaius' orphans. Again a great story that humanizes past villains and gives us more imperial areas beside the usual boring castrums. I just hope the end won't simply be: A sucession of more capable characters sacrefice themselves so that the cute one can survive. It is a trope I hate with a passion.
But let's go back to the main story. Things are really getting close to a breaking point. Remember Tiamat? Bahamut's wife/sister who let herself shackled due to guilt and wants to stay alone untill the world is ending? Welp the world IS ending and Estinien will go to tell her. She will join the fight against Lunar Bahamut. Remember what I told you about IV? Well Lunar Primals appeared in IV: The After Years. Joining Bahamut are Lunar Ifrit, Lunar Ravana aaaand...
Fuckmothering Lunar ODIN! If everyone was ever in the Black Shroud when the colour drains out of everything, they know what a big deal with is. Odin is a monster. I once had this happen to me while I was in the Sylphlands, an already dangerous part of the place. In fact I won a halloween story contest when I wrote down what happened. THAT Odin is now powered up. Granted we know that Odin is just a convenient transport for Zantetsuken the true Primal. No Idea how Lunar Primals function, but this will be quite the fight. Interestingly he is fought by Thancred and Urianger in this scene. So is he a solo duty boss? Who knows?
Speaking of things we don't know, Zenos is in the palace trying to pick a weapon out of a pile of surprisingly advanced looking ones on the ground, One of them might be a scythe, but we can't tell from the angle. Oh speaking of which, during the Live Letter Yoshi's shirt really looked like an angel. Maybe a fallen angel? A weird cross between an angel and the grim reaper.
And since we are taling about dead things, the final and most enigmatic shot of the trailer shows the Warrior of Light at Silvertear Lake visited by a glowing ghost. Some think it looks like a hooded figure, so every ascian, or a long haired female, like Minfilia or Hydaelin herself. The important thing is that Silvertear Lake still has a mistery. Something is at the bottom of the lake. Something that Midgardsormr had to guard, and we still don't know what that is. We were promised an answer in Shadowbringers.
5.5 is going all out. We thought 5.0 to be a satisfying finalee. We believed the same for 5.3 and now 5.5 seeks to outdo them all even though it is just a lead in for 6.0. This two part finalee is a work of art. One thing left to discuss. The title of the patch, Death Unto Dawn, a lot of the scenes showing people downed by Lunar Primals, and the sometimes desperate voiceover suggests that somebody will die. Hell there are people who believe that all Alliance Leaders will perish. I wouldn't go that far, but considering what we are up against, things were running way too smoothly. My money is on Raubahn not surviving.
