Final Fantasy 14's next update brings back Kefka, one of the series' best villains

Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy 14: Stormblood's 4.2 update will be arriving January 30, and it's bringing some heavy nostalgia with it. Fans of the MMO will know what to expect by now as the update, titled Rise of a New Sun, brings the usual host of a new raid wing, dungeons, and smaller features. But it's the special tease at the end of the trailer that's really exciting: Kefka, the maniac wizard from Final Fantasy 6, is back.

He's given little more than a brief tease, but it's a punch of nostalgia for anyone who grew up with the series. For those unfamiliar, Kefka is a raging lunatic who destroyed the world and is easily one of the most enigmatic villains, standing just as tall (if not taller) than the infamous Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7. 

While not stated directly, Kefka appears to be the final boss of the new raid coming in Stormblood called Omega: Sigmascape. From the few shots of it that appear in the trailer, it looks to be a welcome trip back to Final Fantasy's glory days on the SNES. This, of course, comes after update 4.1 let players return to Ivalice—the setting of FF12 and Tactics. As a longtime player of Final Fantasy 14, it's one of the few games that does nostalgic fan service well.

Of course, Rise of a New Sun isn't just about the raid. The update also brings a host of new story quests to work through in addition to the usual two new dungeons that come with each patch. This time, players are traveling to Hell's Lid and venturing back to The Fractal Continuum in the remixed hard more. There's also a new primal fight against Byakko, one of the Four Lords harassing your efforts to restore Ala Mhigo after the successful rebellion of the main expansion storyline.

Some smaller features include a new beast tribe to run daily quests with in exchange for reputation and valuable items and a housing update that'll add more neighborhoods to the four residential areas, hopefully alleviating the housing crisis that's been happening in Final Fantasy 14 for some time now.

If you want the full scoop on 4.2, you can head over to the official site to learn more.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.