Naoki Yoshida, Final Fantasy 14’s producer and director, has repeatedly described the MMORPG as a theme park for the series, with its wealth of distractions and references to multiple games.
If that’s the case, then the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fest event is the real-life theme park: full of activities, but plagued by queue times.
This was the first in-person Fan Fest event since 2019’s event in Japan, and will be followed by similar events in London in October and Tokyo next year. Fittingly this Fan Fest was hosted in Las Vegas, the theme park of America. Thousands of fans wandered the freezing, air-conditioned temperatures of the Las Vegas Convention Centre away from the sweltering 45-degree desert heat outside, like a real-life version of in-game casino The Gold Saucer.
Enter inside and you’ll see throngs of fans flocking to activities in its main hall, which is themed around latest expansion Endwalker. There are quest markers on the show floor to locate Gleaners: actors dressed up in character fervently offering quests tied into the activities. A bunny DJs on a disco floor of emoting fans, while cosplayers saunter past, showing off their art. The game’s developers are here too, chatting on panel events, while players compete in PVP championships – where one person wears a Dark Souls helmet. The queue for merch is endless and the store quickly sells out. The Starbucks next door is perpetually overflowing.