FINAL FANTASY XIV: ENDWALKER.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: VIDEO GAME

When the online multiplayer role-playing game Final Fantasy XIV hit the market in 2010, it was a disaster, panned by critics and series fans alike. The game lasted two years before servers shut down, failing to unseat industry leader World of Warcraft.

But rather than abandoning the game, developers heavily retooled and relaunched Final Fantasy XIV'in 2013 with a new storyline. Over the next eight years it would slowly build a committed audience across several expansions of its world--one riven by war, plagued by elemental monstrosities, and manipulated by a shadowy cabal seemingly intent on destruction.

The persistence and storytelling would pay off in December 2021 with the release of Endwalker, an expansion to the game that also concludes the storyline people have been working their way through for nearly a decade. While the player-dubbed the "Warrior of Light"--engages in typical fantasy sword-and-sorcery high jinks, Endwalker's story is not of good triumphing over evil so much as of hope triumphing over despair.

The...