Dawntrail marks a new beginning for Final Fantasy XIV, setting in motion a brand new narrative arc on top of some massive housekeeping changes that will alter the game forever. As is customary of expansions, version 7.0 will see the addittion of two brand new jobs, which Square Enix has said will be a Melee DPS and Caster DPS. While director and producer Naoki Yoshida said he couldn’t talk about Dawntrail’s new jobs yet, we can make an educated deduction about what they’ll be.
Dawntrail takes FFXIV players to the “New World” of Tural, which lies across the ocean to the West of Eorzea. The entire reveal trailer has an “adventurous feel,” and Tural is seemingly based on Central America. There are quite a few similarities between Dawntrail and Final Fantasy XI, specifically the Treasures of Aht Urghan expansion.
Because of this, it’s likely that one of Dawntrail’s new jobs could be the Corsair, a job introduced to FFXI in Treasures of Aht Urhgan. It would fit incredibly well with the seafaring aesthetic and adventure theme, but there’s even more support.
At one point near the end of the trailer, we see the Warrior of Light standing near the bow of the ship. If you freeze the frame you can clearly see his hand is supposed to be resting on a weapon, which has been edited out. The way the hand is resting could easily indicate some kind of cutlass or similarly large-hilted sword, which would tie in with Corsair.
During the Dawntrail keynote Naoki Yoshida removed his hoodie to reveal a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, which many have taken as a tease of the new jobs. The Ninja job in FFXIV is the only one to use “Scouting” type gear, and it makes sense the new Melee DPS would use that as nearly every other type of gear applies to two or more classes. In FFXI, Corsair was a light class that couldn’t use heavy armor, which would make it the perfect pick to use Scouting gear in FFXIV.
That Ninja Turtles t-shirt may also be applicable to the second job. All four turtles are named after iconic painters, which could be a nod to an obscure job called Pictomancer from Final Fantasy VI. This job was used by Relm Arrowny in FFVI, who was a powerful magic user that could Sketch enemies to replicate their attacks.
We already know Dawntrail will take inspiration from FFVI. The new Trial boss shown during the keynote was Valigarmanda (originally Tritoch in the Western release), a rainbow-colored bird boss first introduced in FFVI. According to Yoshida, Valigarmanda will also play a “major role” in Dawntrail’s story.
With Dawntrail drawing clear inspiration from FFVI and FFXI, all the pieces seem to line up for jobs from those two games. There’s enough evidence at this point that the additions seem all but confirmed, but we’ll likely see an official announcement at the London Fan Festival on October 21.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail releases in summer 2024 for PS4,PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
