There comes some extent the place, after so many hours invested into one thing, it turns into a side of your life. It might be a interest or past-time, a ability or a convention. Little habits that outline slices of your life like eras. The anime you grew up watching on Toonami. The sourdough starter you tried in the course of the pandemic. The podcasts you take heed to on the drive to work.

Video games can do the identical, and it’s that feeling that’s washing over me on the eve of Last Fantasy XIV‘s newest growth. Dawntrail arrives quickly, lower than 12 hours from me typing this. I’ve been spending all day making an attempt to encapsulate what which means for me, and for gamers wanting to set off for brand spanking new adventures.

To these out of the loop, it’d sound a bit unusual. I’ll admit, I used to be a late arrival to the XIV celebration. I picked it up throughout Endwalker, arguably the worst attainable time to start out taking part in the MMORPG. Servers had been buckling underneath the burden of so many Warriors of Gentle, making an attempt to go online and see their journey by way of to the top. Absolutely that recognition alone offers folks some thought of the devotion this recreation conjures up, even when they’ve by no means set a foot in Eorzea.

But it nonetheless captured me. Not instantly; a part of me simply loved the novelty of operating by way of entry-level dungeons as others had been swiftly chewing by way of present content material. I did love the sensation of beginning a brand new dungeon and seeing messages comment on how they hadn’t seen this responsibility in ages. Gamers making an attempt to recollect outdated mechanics is a sense I’m all too acquainted with, now.

I posted a screenshot of the primary time the Warrior of Gentle, the participant’s avatar, meets the Scions of the Seventh Daybreak, a bunch that rapidly turns into probably the most acquainted faces and staunchest allies in Last Fantasy XIV. Lengthy-time gamers replied, saying how nostalgic it felt to see them there, like that once more. It was like slowly immersing myself in years of historical past I’d by no means been aware of, till now.

Weeks and months went on, and I noticed all of it. Dungeons, raids, highs and lows. A number of cutscenes performed in sequence. First, A Realm Reborn, then Heavensward, on to Stormblood and Shadowbringers, and eventually, Endwalker. In the middle of a yr, I caught all the way in which as much as extra seasoned Last Fantasy XIV gamers, and eventually noticed the “To be continued…” on my predominant story quest marker.

And at this level, you’d suppose, that will be that. I’d dip again in for story once I wished to, perhaps keep present sufficient to see the subsequent growth, however finally decelerate. I’d caught up. I ought to’ve identified that was solely the beginning.

Last Fantasy XIV is just not the primary recreation to carry me agency in its clutches. Whereas I’d say RPGs are my major realm of protection, a part of me all the time beloved on-line video games. From Quake to StarCraft, to Unreal Match and Name of Responsibility, to League of Legends and Dota 2, I might whereas away hours upon hours locked in on-line co-operation and competitors.

Perhaps the latter half is why World of Warcraft by no means grabbed me, although I additionally keep I used to be just a bit peeved we’d by no means see a brand new Warcraft RTS. However I put a whole bunch, perhaps even hundreds of hours into these. So how did Last Fantasy XIV do the identical to me?

Effectively, it occurred slowly. Some occasions pop up, and I need one other new mount or glamour. A buddy desires to hang around and go take a look at what a Last Fantasy XIV evening membership seems like, and I oblige. Colleagues, together with Destructoid’s resident XIV scholar Andrea Shearon, demand I play the Eden raids. (Nonetheless engaged on these, sorry Andrea.)

And at one level, I get obsessive about Triple Triad. That foolish, superfluous mini-game from Last Fantasy VIII. Good lord, the hours I’ve misplaced to Triple Triad.

For these unaccustomed, Triple Triad is a reasonably easy recreation the place you play playing cards on a 9×9 grid, one after the other. Every card has a numerical worth in its cardinal instructions, and when you play a better quantity than one other card it touches, you flip it to your aspect. The participant with probably the most playing cards of their nook wins. There are a number of further guidelines like Similar, Reverse, and Plus that get tossed in for good measure, however that’s the brief model of it.

There’s a mount you will get, an exceptionally uncommon mount; websites that monitor mounts estimate roughly 3% of the participant base has it. It’s a flying Triple Triad mount. To do it, it’s important to principally have interaction with each inch of Last Fantasy XIV. Raids, dungeons, and trials. Tribal quests. Crafting and gathering. Tiny aspect quests, sprinkled all through Eorzea, and large areas filled with non-obligatory content material like Eureka and Bozja. In case you see somebody flying round on a Triple Triad card, they haven’t simply performed the story beats of Last Fantasy XIV. They’ve seen every bit of it.

I do know, as a result of I’ve been chasing that mount for ages now. Not every week goes by with out logging in and grinding a brand new dungeon, performing some tribal turn-ins, and chipping away at some duties I nonetheless want playing cards from. It has, at this level, grow to be routine. Whilst my playtime waxes and wanes, I can’t assist however need to chip away at it. It’s an enormous flying card, not probably the most glamorous mount within the recreation, however nonetheless a little bit of a standing image.

It’s additionally pressured me to see Last Fantasy XIV past that high layer. Like peeling again the onion and eradicating that first bit, solely to seek out increasingly beneath. What I discovered wasn’t simply sufficient content material to most likely final me a lifetime, however all of the folks and the other ways they have interaction with Last Fantasy XIV.

A few of my associates solely play XIV for the story. They hop on when there’s a brand new piece of predominant narrative, blast by way of it in a number of hours, and are available again for the subsequent patch a number of months later. Heck, I used to be that means for some time too.

Others are extra concerned. They prog high-level content material. They’re omnicrafters. They digitally bartend. Once I picked up the Blue Mage vocation, it wasn’t alone; I joined a bunch of gamers, all making an attempt to grind out the identical wacky, somewhat-esoteric content material collectively. Working map nights, raid nights, any sort of evening makes a few of the distance really feel smaller.

That’s the unimaginable factor, in Last Fantasy XIV. So many individuals I do know in actual life, spend time with, and discuss to even within the trade, play XIV. Like different on-line video games, it will probably completely function a recreation to play whereas we’re on a name in Discord on a Wednesday evening. But it surely’s additionally a shared world. Seeing an orange identify go by me in Limsa is all the time a pleasant shock, and it’s so warming to throw out a /wave and get one in return.

Last Fantasy XIV has, in its personal means, wormed itself into the material of my life. Not simply my recreation taking part in, which comes and goes as upcoming releases grow to be new releases, and contemporary video games grow to be outdated recreation and backlog entries. It’s woven into social buildings. In some methods, it’s a major discussion board for a few of my relationships.

How do you quantify what a recreation means to you when it’s the catalyst for a lot? When one thing transcends the “recreation of the week” you joke round in for some time and drop, to one thing that turns into part of your routine? And what does it imply to take a brand new step in that collectively? Actually, all of the “Horde” and “Alliance” shouting at outdated BlizzCons is beginning to make sense to me. XIV isn’t actually simply an RPG I play anymore. It’s a digital house I go to. It’s the place I’ve met new folks and stored outdated friendships sturdy. It’s a distinct sort of attachment than I really feel in the direction of one thing like Mass Impact or The World Ends With You; video games that had been pivotal in my life however finally finite, and never fairly as outlined by my social interactions a lot as my inner, emotional reactions. I like the Normandy, however BioWare has but to let me hang around on the ship with my associates and run Frontline whereas second-screening a soccer match.

So, on the eve of Dawntrail, I’ve been wanting again by way of my large album of screenshots and positive, I’ve bought the large moments. Beautiful cutscenes, emotional character strains, and unimaginable vistas. I’ve bought extra Gpose photographs than any individual wants. However I’ve bought tons of pictures of raid clears and dungeon endings, or simply hanging out in participant housing.

A part of me hopes that Dawntrail continues to elicit those self same feelings, that what’s coming down the pipe will solely be additive to what Last Fantasy XIV is. The bizarre half is, even when it’s not, there’s nonetheless a lot Last Fantasy XIV right here. Perhaps this recreation will, too, fade in time and grow to be one other “period” of my life. I’ll look again on this the way in which I look again on older recollections of video games I assumed I’d play endlessly.

However with new horizons comes new possibilities for making new reminiscences. The great half about getting older is you study to cherish the great moments whereas they’re right here, as a result of you understand how rapidly they will go away. So on the eve of Dawntrail, I’m cherishing quite a lot of golden reminiscences on the trail right here. And hopefully, many extra forward. See you all in Tural.