A couple months ago, Square Enix released a teaser video for Stormblood and gave fans a ballpark estimate regarding the release of the expansion. Finally, at the Final Fantasy XIV Tokyo Fan Festival yesterday, they announced the official date for it. The new expansion contains a bunch of new goodies that the teaser trailer didn’t really prepare fans for. This includes the definitive addition of the Red Mage job, among many other details.

For long time players of FFXIV, you’ll finally get to play in the water. That’s right. Swimming and diving will be introduced with the Stormblood debut.

There will be an increased level cap of 70, and  “Return to Ivalice” and “The Bend of Time – Omega” will be a new raids coming to the game. That’s not all. New enemies and NPCs will appear, like the Ananta, for example. They are a new beast tribe that consists of only females that reside in the mountains by Ala Mhigo.

The FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood expansion pack is scheduled to launch on June 20, 2017! #FFXIV #FFXIVFanFest2016 pic.twitter.com/Ksv1JbZEnW

— FINAL FANTASY XIV (@FF_XIV_EN) December 24, 2016

Curious about the Red Mage class? The main role for the Red Mage will be as a ranged DPS, wielding a rapier and magicked crystal medium, and a tentative starting level of 50. Melee attacks will be performed using their blade, while ranged assaults will be executed using Red Magic. It sounds absolutely awesome!

This is for all of the collector’s a loyal fans of Final Fantasy XIV! There will be a Collector’s Edition available for pre-order starting on January 24,2017. In it, will include:

• Special packaging with featured art by Yoshitaka Amano
• Exclusive Zenos Figure
• Cloth map of Eorzea
• Original decal
• Stormblood Artbook

In-game items include:

• Syldra Mount for Swimming & Diving (in-game)
• Chicken Knife (in-game)
• Bartz Minion (in-game)

Not only do you get an exclusive figurine, art book and other goodies to treasure in real life, but you get awesome in-game loot too? Talk about jackpot. No price has been revealed just yet, but just from the sound of it all, this bad boy won’t be cheap. Will it be worth it, though? Oh yeah.

Pre-orders for the Collector’s Edition of Stormblood will begin on January 24, 2017.

If you don’t care for that so much, players can begin pre-orders for the expansion on Amazon at a whopping $39.99 USD. Confusingly, Amazon states that the physical copy will be released on December 29th, 2017, a completely different date than the announced June 20, 2017. This may be a communication error, or lack thereof. For those hoping to order it directly from the Square Enix website, they have a wait list that cannot be accessed for the time being. Check their website often, to get your hands on it as soon as possible!

What do you think, gamers and fans? Are you excited for the Stormblood expansion? Will you be pre-ordering the Collector’s Edition? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below. We would love to hear from you!

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