At this time, the story of Final Fantasy XIV’s development is the stuff of legends. As the poster child of video game redemption after its disastrous launch, XIV has since gone on to be one of the most successful MMORPGs on the market, matching and sometimes even exceeding Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in popularity. Its successful relaunch is so unique that gamers even refer to it when live-service games fail out the gate, saying the game needs to have a “Realm Reborn” moment—a reference to XIV’s relaunched version that completely changed the game from the ground up, turning a once massive failure into a beloved game now going for over a decade.
I was part of that early wave of Final Fantasy XIV players who experienced the original failed launch back in 2010. It was a truly miserable gaming experience and not nearly enough to rip my attention away from World of Warcraft. I put it away until the weekend of Realm Reborn’s beta, where I had picked up the game on PlayStation 3 more out of curiosity to see how a complex MMO would handle console controls rather than any actual interest in playing long. I ended up playing quite a bit longer than I thought I would….
Roughly a year after the game’s re-release, I attended the very first Fan Festival at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a simpler time, with an estimated ~2.5k players flying in from all over to meet the devs and each other, and see firsthand the all-new expansion coming to the game.
The event was somewhat unorganized; there was little to actually do, and rather than attending carefully curated meet-and-greets, you would often just find the devs on the casino floor at odd hours of the night. Still, the experience was amazing, even just meeting your fellow players and sharing in the joy of the whole celebration. I’ve gone to every FanFest since, minus 2018 when I failed to secure tickets in time. Each event grew in size, scope, and spectacle.
Fast forward to April 2026, five FanFests later, and the game and its player base have grown exponentially. Shifting to the Anaheim Convention Center located just a block from Southern California’s Disneyland, the event is now the largest gaming convention for a singular game and rivals Blizzard’s BlizzCon in size.
While I’ll provide what I hope is a fair assessment of my experience at this convention, I will preface this review by saying that I am a huge fan of the game and its community. And while I absolutely love going to the event every few years, some frustrations of course muck the fun up a bit.
But before I go into any of that, know that if you are a fan of the game at all, you will enjoy your time at FanFest. (If you’re not a fan—and there were quite a few spouses/significant others who attended and were absolutely bewildered by the whole thing—your experience may not be quite as exciting). Still, let’s talk about what worked and what didn’t at FanFest 2026.
The Main Activity is Standing and Waiting
My wife and I went to Disneyland the day before FanFest. Anyone who’s been there or to any other theme park knows what a toll that can take on your body. Despite me splurging on lightning pass benefits, the physical effort that waiting 2 hours for Space Mountain does to you is not something I wish to experience again anytime soon. I hadn’t been to Disneyland since I was a kid so I’ll quickly summarize: the Nintendo Switch made those lines so much more tolerable, so bring one and a battery pack. Also, that new Star Wars ride is an absolutely incredible experience.
So with that in mind, we arrived at FanFest nearly 2 hours early and still found ourselves staring down the barrel of some odd 15k people in front of us. I caught up with a livestreamer I knew who was serving as a volunteer assigned to the front of the line; she told me the line was already packed when she arrived and folks had begun lining up the night before as early as 8 PM. Sore as hell from our previous days’ escapades, we joined the queue, one of many over the next few days.
Here’s where some comparisons to previous events come in handy. Despite the large crowd, the line was fairly smooth and went quickly when doors opened. Importantly, there were parts of the line that had seating, and even shade. The 2023 FanFest held at the Las Vegas Convention Center had none of that, and attendees had to stand in 105-degree weather with no shade for several hours before doors opened.
Events like these have always struggled with queues. In previous years, queue management has been so bad the fire department has had to step in and force it to close. The Vegas one from the last FanFest was so bad I predicted a potential massive lawsuit when someone inevitably suffered heat stroke from wearing cosplay in the Vegas heat. And while the initial line to get in the door was smooth, the hard reality is that you will spend almost all of your time at FanFest standing in lines.
Announcements and Keynote
That initial line is important because it determines how close you are to the stage for what is the event’s biggest moment: the keynote speech. It always starts with the biggest announcement, the next expansion, and this year delivered. Not only did the developers show the upcoming EverCold expansion, but Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida took the stage to deep dive into upcoming massive changes to the games combat and gearing systems, as well as the announcement of an Evangelion crossover raid coming alongside the expansion. For many players who felt that the game had become quite stale over the course of the previous expansion, this was exactly what they needed to hear.
The only disappointment was that the team held back many details for future FanFests. I get the need to spread out announcements, but it’s bad optics to tell a crowd of people who flew from all over, spent potentially hundreds or thousands on hotels, flights, and tickets, and then waited all night in line: “Sorry, we’re not telling you more about this until Berlin or Tokyo later this year.” If that’s the case, then don’t even hint or allude to the announcement in the first place.
This leads to another general criticism of the way Final Fantasy XIV announces content. During the keynote speech of the 2023 FanFest, the developers announced the upcoming Beastmaster class would be released at some point during the Dawntrail expansion’s patch cycle. Nearly three years later, and after another FanFest has come and gone, we STILL don’t have Beastmaster in the game. Please, don’t announce something players are going to have to wait THREE YEARS for.
The announcements ended with an expected but still nice treat: the announcement that Final Fantasy XIV would be coming to Nintendo Switch 2. But like Fortnite’s V-bucks, Nintendo did not play nice with the current business model that allows access to the game from all platforms under one subscription. Instead, Nintendo insisted that Switch players pay a separate subscription, albeit discounted if you already subscribe to the game. This pretty much deflated any excitement the crowd had for the Switch 2 version of the game, though to be fair, I imagine this is entirely on Nintendo’s draconian policies rather than Square Enix. And for gamers who only play Switch 2 (and there are a lot of those), it’s great to finally welcome them to the party.
Activities (or Lack Thereof)
One criticism I’ve always had of these events is that there simply isn’t actually that much to do and what there is… is pretty sad. After the keynote, the floor opens and fans can engage in a variety of themed activities. The problem is that few of them actually have much to do with the game itself. In prior years, Square Enix worked with Dell to provide desktops for things like PVP matches or checking out an unreleased raid. Not this year. This year, you’re lining up for an hour to play a carnival-style ring-toss game, or lining up for an hour to take a photo in front of a cardboard cutout of an in-game character or scene. The “Crystalline Conflict” event was particularly sad, as I watched people line up for over two hours to play a simple game where they rolled giant inflatable dice.
A few activities were on point. The fan art gallery is a joy to walk through and showcases some of the immense talent from the fans of the game. There was a dance activity that cleverly incorporated elements and music from a recent in-game raid and was by far the most well-done activity, encouraging both the dancers and the crowd to cheer and participate. Bizarrely, thanks to a recent collaboration with Filipino fast-food juggernaut “Jollibee,” many players were thrilled to get a picture with the corporate bee mascot himself, accompanied by his extraordinarily well-done companion “Jolli-Bee-Mine”—a new character that is a play on both the Jollibee mascot and a beloved character from Final Fantasy XIV. I was shocked at how hard Jollibee, a relatively unknown chain here in the states, went for this event, even decorating their local spot in Final Fantasy XIV scenery. I’ve always had a soft spot for the chain’s fried chicken and their commitment to this collaboration only cemented me as a fan.
Finally, I do have to express some disappointment at the meet and greet. It’s based on a lottery system where some FanFest attendees are given a timeframe to meet one of the developers. I was given a 10:30–12:30 timeline to meet with Koji, the game’s localization producer and keeper of game lore (and lead singer in the band The Primals, which we will talk about last). I arrived at 10:45 just to be told the line was full and I wouldn’t be getting in. Not really a window of time is it then? I wasn’t personally bothered by this; I’m game industry myself and have met most of the team at more intimate industry events like GDC or E3, but I could still see others being quite disappointed.
Overall, I still have the same feeling about the activities as I always have: there simply isn’t enough to actually do at FanFest. And it’s perplexing that Square Enix hasn’t caught on to this. You have a huge gathering of customers; why not have demo booths of other Square Enix products? Why not ask cosplayers, streamers, and influencers to do meet-and-greets? Or strike up a deal with Alienware to have rows of high-end machines set up so players could actually just play the game? Or hell, even set up some tables with monitors and ethernet and let players bring their laptops for an impromptu LAN party? It all seems so obvious, and after 10 years of this, I’m perplexed as to why this event is still so boring.
Merch Line – The Ultimate Raid
The merch line has always been absolute hell at these events. In previous years, this was an ordeal, requiring you to spend nearly your entire day waiting. It’s often poorly organized; equipment like credit card readers fail, items run out of stock, and the army of paid volunteers that event organizers contract are usually poorly trained and equally as frustrated as their customers. That’s why I’m surprised to say that it seems they finally cracked the code on this one thanks to a smart system of reservations.
To start, the actual system to make reservations was a broken mess. Like many one-off event apps, the app that Square Enix released to help people make reservations and join activities at FanFest was total garbage and frequently crashed under heavy load. Still, with patience, I was able to reserve a spot in the merch line for Day 2. This wasn’t really a line as much as it was just showing up, buying whatever you wanted, and then bouncing out. In previous years, I had waited as long as 5 hours to purchase FanFest exclusive Final Fantasy crap; this year, the whole process took from start to finish less than 6 minutes.
That being said, those unlucky with the app or reservation process found themselves staring down the barrel of yet another line, though a bit more manageable. I talked to one fanfester who reported they spent about 3 hours in the line; that is not great, but considering there isn’t really much else to do, he was perfectly fine with it.
Final Fantasy XIV has a Reputation for Having the Best Community
The game has cemented its reputation for having one of the most welcoming and least toxic communities in any online game. This might be because reaching the endgame, where most of the gameplay involving other players occurs, involves first getting through about 100 hours of JRPG storytelling, leaving only the most patient and passionate fans standing. Still, it’s one of the most admired parts of the game; the players are genuinely kind, compassionate, and welcoming to everyone, and that extends to the players who you will meet in real life.
Talking with other players this year, one topic kept coming up: Final Fantasy XIV helped them through some difficult times in their lives. This was especially true during the pandemic, and I met dozens of players who shared stories of the game helping them cope with the loneliness and isolation of those lockdown years. Additionally, Final Fantasy XIV is well known for inclusivity; you’ll find players from all walks of life at FanFest, and it’s particularly wonderful hearing stories from members of the LGBTQ+ community finding a safe space within Final Fantasy that lets them express themselves without judgment.
That being said, like many similar fandoms in anime or other video games, some fans may not be equipped to handle the social etiquette required of in-person events like these. Adult tantrums and meltdowns are sadly common and disruptive. Though it seems Square Enix and its event organizers this year even anticipated this, providing enforced quiet spaces that encouraged overwhelmed fans to take a breather. That still requires a bit of self-awareness that some community members haven’t quite worked out, and things like standing/shouting during the dev panel, creepy leering at cosplayers, and poor self-hygiene practices are unfortunately quite common.
Finally, on the topic of bad fan behavior, the practice of placing a bag on a chair and expecting to claim it all day needs to absolutely be banished and punished. (My recommendation to event staff is that they confiscate unaccompanied bags left alone for more than five minutes). This annoying practice was especially prevalent in the FanFest’s ultimate event: the Primals Concert.
The Primals Concert is the Real Reason to Attend
The Primals’ story is as legendary as the revival of the game itself. Ahead of the first FanFest, Final Fantasy XIV music director Masayoshi Soken—who once spent an entire year composing music for the game from a hospital bed while undergoing chemo treatment for cancer—formed a band made up of fellow dev team members so that they could perform the game’s incredible soundtrack live for FanFest attendees. It’s imperative to remember that these are game devs, not rock stars, though Soken has become so beloved within the community that he may as well be a rock star at this point.
Final Fantasy XIV holds the Guinness record for most music composed for a single project, and nearly every track is an absolute banger. Incorporating every music style and genre imaginable, the 600-some tracks that compose the game’s music have been lauded by even non-fans. Seeing the band play live is an ephemeral experience; it’s hard to explain to people outside of the community itself just how surreal and wonderful it all is.
This is the most celebratory and beloved moment of the entire FanFest, so much so that the Primals occasionally tour outside of their scheduled FanFest events. It’s simply a one-of-a-kind experience that has to be seen. I’ve never seen such confident execution of music, fandom, and celebration come together to create a wholly unique experience.
It’s a Pain, But of Course I’ll Be Back
After the concert, I met up with several other players at a nearby bar. We all expressed similar views of the FanFest as a whole. First, we all agreed that for the love of god, they should continue having it at the Anaheim Convention Center where food and hotel options are in abundance and the heat is much more manageable than the certain death we faced in Vegas.
Second was that, honestly, the events and activities at FanFest kinda suck. It’s not really that much fun to hang out at the event itself, waiting in line for two hours for an opportunity to take a photo with a cardboard prop, or play a simple game just to win a sticker. But we all agreed that this was one of the most memorable experiences of our lives, and that it wasn’t the dev team or the activities or the announcements that made it what it was; it was the shared joy of being with thousands of other Warriors of Light. It’s the people you conversed with in one of those hour-long lines. It’s the love and shared excitement of geeking out for two days over a shared passion that made this event. It’s an event comprising hundreds of little stories from its passionate fans that cement FanFest as the premiere video game event.
While there’s a million things I wish they would do differently next time, the one thing I can for sure say is that I will be there next time. My fellow Warriors of Light, we’ve fought gods and traveled through time and space together, but the most memorable adventure of all was our journey to the Roscoe’s fried chicken across the street from the Anaheim Convention Center, the shots of well whiskey with a Red Mage I met through Discord, or the hotel lobby filled with laptops as people showed off the digital avatars they’ve spent years meticulously crafting.
FanFest is just that: it’s something for the fans to connect to each other; it’s just a bonus the devs showed up and also announced a pretty cool new expansion.
