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CriticsSubjectGames
Ode to the joys of fantasy
Final Fantasy XIV:
Shadowbringers
(Square Enix; PC, PS4 )The climax of Dead Pixels , E 4 ’ s
recent sitcom from the creators of
Peep Show and based on a group
of friends obsessed with an online
fantasy video game, was surprisingly
affecting. After years of questing
together, the friends, for whom the
game had become the crucible in
which their bonds had been made
and reinforced, successfully plant
the “Orb of Uncreation ” into the
slug queen’s egg sac and thereby
triumphantly conclude the game’s
story. The reward for the thousands
of hours’ effort? A treasure chest
containing a pair of red gloves.
“No, this was totally, totally worth
it,” murmurs one of the players into
the head mic she uses to chat to
her teammates (one of whom plays
from the adjacent bedroom). “I’m so
happy with my life choices.”
It’s a joke about the fallacy of
so much human endeavour, from
stamp collecting to Westminster
jostling : the hollow realisation that
the appeal often lies in the striving,
not the attaining. It also strikes at
the heart of a truth about a certain
kind of online video game, played at
a certain point of early adulthood.
Soon enough you discover that
the game is merely the pretext to
hang out with the people you met
along the way. As the Dead Pixels
characters mournfully say their
goodbyes, one interjects, ecstatically,
with the news that a story-
elongating expansion has just been
announced for the game. Blessed
relief: the band can stay together.
Shadowbringers is the third and
fi nal expansion to Final Fantasy
XIV , an online fantasy game much
like the fi ctional one of Dead
Pixels. For the past six years it, too,
has provided an excuse for tens
of thousands of players around
the world to meet up. The MMO
( massively multiplayer online game),
as this genre is known, is no longer
as popular as it once was (at one
point , World of Warcraft had twice as‘Joyously refi ned’:
Shadowbringer, the
concluding chapter of
the Final Fantasy series,
allows players to
span virtual continents
and dimensions.
Games PressSimon
Parkinmany subscribers as Denmark had
citizens ) but Final Fantasy XIV has
provided a stronghold for players
who would rather collaborate in
high-fantasy-styled world-saving
endeavours than fl oss the nights
away in Fortnite and its twitchily
competitive ilk.
The story of Final Fantasy XIV’s
development has its own enthralling
arc. Released in September 2010 ,
just as the genre’s popularity
was peaking, the game was so
poorly received it prompted a
deep-bowing apology from its
Japanese publisher’s president
and the sacrifi cial resignation of
its producer, one of the company’s
longest-serving employees. The
world was closed for a multimillion-
yen refurbishment and, when
in 2013 the doors were opened,
the response from players was
rapturous, making a hero of
Naoki Yoshida , the underdog
designer who had so successfully
masterminded the refi t.
This, then, is Yoshida’s concluding
chapter to the game’s story, which,
for anyone looking to start from the
beginning, spans virtual continents
and dimensions, and requires about
as great an investment of time as
reading the complete works of
Tolstoy. There are items that can
be used to boot a new character to
the beginning of the latest chapter
in the drama, but whichever route
you take, this is a joyously refi ned
example of a style of game that,The story
requires about
as great an
investment of
time as reading
the complete
works of Tolstoy
Six years after Final
Fantasy XIV began
comes its heady climax- and the opportunity
to refl ect on the true
meaning of friendship
Game of the monthGame of the month
The Observer
04.08.19Also recommended
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
( Nintendo; Switch )Since 1990 , the Fire Emblem series
has provided a kind of soap-opera
rendering of chess, in which each
piece has a name, backstory and
romantic feelings. Emotional tension
is ratcheted up by the fact that,
if you allow a piece to fall during
battle, he or she will be lost from the
story for ever, a rule known in
game design as “perma death ”. Fire
Emblem: Th ree Houses has all of this
and more, as you play as a university
professor-cum-knight who takes
charge of one of three houses at
an Offi cers Academy, responsible
for both your students’ survival
on the battlefi eld, and their martial
education in between skirmishes.
A deep and deeply rewarding game
of strategy, wrapped in a high-
school simulator.in less sympathetic hands, can be
repellently arcane.
The dialogue is punchy, the
characters well defi ned, and as
you dash about the lavish world
you soon get caught up in dramas ,
local and international. There are
stirring set-piece battles, for which
you’ll be paired with other players,
as well as smaller errands, such as
picking up items from local shops
in exchange for information, and so
on. You play as a hero, of course, but
the world’s politics are fully formed,
and yours is but one role in many
required to win the war. You choose
a class for your adventurer to fi t
your own temperament – knights,
healers, samurai, gunslingers,
dancers – and, away from the
battlefi eld, you may put hours into
perfecting your character’s outfi t,
choosing a pet or decorating your
virtual homestead.
Unlike most games, Final Fantasy
XIV requires a monthly subscription,
money used to keep the virtual
world’s servers humming. While the
developer is therefore incentivi sed
to waste players’ time, those who
stick to Shadowbringers’ main
storyline will reach its heady climax
within a few weeks. Then again,
there’s always a chance you’ll make
some genuine friends along the way,
and the game, like the golf course,
the bingo hall, the pub or the yacht
club, will become a mere pretext
for something more profound and
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