Last weekend, Square Enix held its Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fest in Berlin, an event that included a number of announcements for the upcoming Evercold expansion. The biggest piece of news was probably the reveal of the expansion’s first of two new jobs: Bastion. While the second job won’t be officially announced until Tokyo Fan Fest in October, eagle-eyed fans already think they know what it will be.
The Final Fantasy 14 community has put the clues together and decided that Evercold‘s second new job will be Falconer. Here’s the evidence. Square Enix has said both of the next expansion’s jobs will be original to the series. That rules out a number of possibilities that have appeared in Final Fantasy games in the past. We also know the second job will be physical ranged DPS. Finally, the last confirmed piece of evidence we have comes from Berlin Fan Fest. During a panel, composer Masayoshi Soken played two sound effects related to the second job. The first included a tick or clicking sound, while the second clearly featured a bird screech followed by slashing sounds. The latter feeds very easily into the Falconer theory.
Furthermore, the latest trailer for Evercold includes a big bird in the middle of it. We see a pink-haired Miqo’te (Final Fantasy 14‘s cat people) fiddling with a magic instrument before an armored bird distracts them and activates some sort of magic. The bird doesn’t appear to be entirely antagonistic toward the Miqo’te, but rather just adorably bothersome in the way pets tend to be when they want attention. The theory, widely discussed by the community on Reddit, suggests that a Falconer job would allow the player to control and command the bird during combat. This could function similarly to the current Summoner job.
The Miqo’te in question also wears thick leather gloves typical of those who handle large birds. The biggest question, however, concerns the magical wand they wield and the first sound effect Soken released. As the new job is physical rather than magical ranged DPS, it is safe to say it will not outright cast spells like a Summoner or Black Mage. Rather, fans suggest that the ticking sound heard in the effect Soken played could be the cocking of a crossbow bolt. Though perhaps some magic could be involved if the main physical aspect of the job is, you know, sending a big angry bird at enemies.
While fans continue to theorize, we won’t know for sure what Evercold‘s second job is until Square Enix officially announces it at Tokyo Fan Fest.
Final Fantasy Fan Fest Tokyo will be held Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at Tokyo’s Makuhari Messe.