FFXIV’s first expansion Heavensward was released back in 2015 but if you haven’t experienced the story of the city state of Ishgard, the Dragonsong War and a Warrior of Light on the run then now you can by claiming a copy of the expansion on either PC or PlayStation 4 up to a day before Shadowbringers launches in Early Access on June 28th.

In order to begin adventures in Ishgard players will need to clear the level 50 Main Story Quest between 2.0 (A Realm Reborn) and 2.55 (Before The Fall). To qualify for a free copy of Heavensward players must have the Final Fantasy XIV Starter Edition on either Windows PC or PlayStation 4. Also it appears that this offer doesn’t extend to the Steam version of XIV.

Reka Ai’a and her companions explore Azys Lla

Despite being 4 years old, Heavensward adds a lot of content that extends XIV’s gameplay in a number of ways that provides Warriors of Light with months, if not years of playable content including:

  • Main Scenario Expansion (Heavensward Base Story 3.0 + 3.X Patches)
  • Three New Jobs – Machinist, Astrologian and Dark Knight.
  • Increased level cap to 60 for all DOW / DOM / DOH / DOL Jobs.
  • Open World Content: The Diadem (although it does require quite a bit of organization to play this content nowadays.)
  • Seven new trials: Ravana, Bismark, Thordin, Sephirot, Sophia, Zurvan and Nidhogg. Plus each trial also has an extreme variant that can reward really sparkly bird mounts.
  • Six new zones: Foundation / Pillars (Ishgard), The Churning Mists, The Dravanian Hinterlands, The Dravanian Forelands, Azys Lla and Ideshire.
  • 12 Eight Person Raids – Alexander.
  • 3 Twenty Four Person Raids – The Shadow of Mach Series -“The Weeping City”, “Dun Scaithe” and “The Void Ark”.
Ozma, one of the most impressive bosses of the 24 person raid series.

I thoroughly enjoyed FFXIV: Heavansward and often find myself returning to its locations quite often. This is true for normal gameplay, whether doing the Alexander Raids or various trials while levelling alt jobs or to collecting rare crafting materials to fashion the shiny primal weapons. Heavenswards’ areas have also been a sort of inspiration for my character as well, as she’s a Machinist, you can often find her hanging out at the Skysteel Manufactury during RP time or just downtime in general.

Source: FFXIV Official Twitter

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