Today Square Enix opened the early access of the brand new Final Fantasy XIV expansion Shadowbringers, and it came with its share of “optional items” on the Mog Station.
If you’re unfamiliar, the Mog Station is the game’s account system that also works as a cash shop. Optional Items are basically microtransactions.
In this case, the new items allow players to boost their level to 70 and to skip the story quests all the way to Shadowbringers.
The Tales of Adventure: Stormblood item costs $25/£18.50/€21,75 depending on where you live, and lets you skip the story up to the Stormblood expansion included, placing you right at the beginning of Shadowbringers. It also includes 50 Allagan Platinum Pieces (which can be converted into 500,000 gil) and 10 silver chocobo feathers, that can be exchanged for equipment.
The Tales of Adventure: One XXX’s Journey II (where “XXX” is one of the jobs of the game) comes with the same cost, and it boosts that job’s level to 70. It also comes with its own 50 Allagan Platinum Pieces, and a coffer with some of the best gear you can get at level 70 (the Scaevan set).
This means that if you purchase the game today and want to start from the expansion, you pretty much need to drop an additional $50 to skip the previous story and boost your level to 70. You’ll also have good starting gear and a bit of gil to spend along the ride.
Whether that’s worth the admission price or not is for you to judge. Personally, while I may understand wanting to skip the leveling grind, I feel that the story of Final Fantasy XIV, even more so with Heavensward and Stormblood, is one of the best ever in the Final Fantasy series. Paying more to skip content I paid for isn’t my cup of tea, but your mileage may vary.
Incidentally, we also get the Tales of Adventure: One Retainer’s Journey II item, which boosts your retainer’s level to 70 as well. It costs $9.00/£5.20/€6,30. You can also buy packs of three for $25.50/£14.70/€17,70 and packs of five for $40.50/£23.30/€28,40.
If you’d like to know more about Final Fantasy XIV and its upcoming expansion Shadowbringers, you can check out the details and footage released in the latest Letter from the Producer Live broadcast, information on the new races, the reveals from Tokyo FanFest including the Dancer job and the Hrothgar race, an official batch of screenshots, and a look on how the new city of Crystarium has been created.
Just a few weeks ago, Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida himself also explained why there won’t be male Viera and female Hrothgar, and why the expansion won’t include a healer job. An official benchmark has been released to let you test your rig and check out the new races.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers will officially launch on July 2 for PS4 and PC.
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