Square Enix has announced the launch dates for Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold, the sixth expansion for the MMORPG. It releases on Tuesday, February 23, 2027, with early access opening Friday, February 19 for players who pre-order. Pre-orders open Wednesday, November 4, 2026. The dates came during the Fan Festival 2026 in Tokyo keynote, which opened October 30 and streamed on the official Final Fantasy XIV channels.
The January window becomes a February date
Evercold was first shown in April 2026 at Fan Festival 2026 in Anaheim with a “January 2027” release window and no specific day. The Tokyo keynote replaced that window with a fixed date of February 23, 2027. The original announcement named only a month, not a day, so the shift is a matter of roughly a month later than the earlier window. Since April, players had known only the month; Tokyo was the expected place for Square Enix to fix an exact day, and it came with the pre-order and early access dates attached. Tokyo is the third stop of the reveal cycle, after Anaheim in April and Berlin in July, and it is where Square Enix typically locks in the final date and the second new job.
Pre-orders, early access, and the launch sequence
Pre-orders open November 4, 2026 across every announced platform. A pre-order is the only way to qualify for early access, which begins February 19, 2027, four days before the full launch on February 23. No pre-order cutoff has been published, so February 19 is the practical deadline for anyone who wants the earlier start. Early access opening on a Friday lets pre-order players start ahead of a weekend before the Tuesday launch.
From pre-order opening to early access is 107 days. That four-day separation between early access and full launch follows the pattern of the game’s recent expansions.
Zephyr, the new ranged DPS job
Zephyr is Evercold’s new ranged DPS job. It wields a crossbow and is supported by an avian familiar, pairing ranged shots with a companion that assists in combat. The crossbow is a weapon the game’s existing jobs do not use: Bard fires bows, Machinist uses guns, and Dancer throws chakrams. It becomes the game’s fourth physical ranged DPS, and the first in that group built around a summoned familiar. Physical ranged DPS jobs attack from distance and fill a dedicated slot in the game’s eight-player party structure.
Naoki Yoshida, Final Fantasy XIV’s director and producer, presented the job during the keynote. Zephyr’s full ability list, job gauge, and familiar commands were not shown, so its position in the game’s endgame damage rotation is still open.
Alliance raids, mount speed, and a new planning UI
The keynote detailed several system changes arriving with Evercold. Alliance raids are 24-player dungeons run by three parties of eight, and they have historically played out as single long sessions. Evercold splits them into two parts so they are quicker to run, and adds a new high-difficulty 8-player mode as a separate track. Loot structure and unlock conditions for both were left unspecified.
Mount movement speed gets a passive boost. The base speed of every mount increases by one level for players who own any of three specific mounts: the SDS Fenrir, the Garland GL-IS, or the Hardy-Daytona. The announcement listed no other way to earn the increase and did not say whether it extends to future mounts.
Evercold also adds Adventurer Activities, a new UI styled as a home base where players plan their next ventures, and a new allied society called the fylgjur. A new player town, Hjartadunur, joins the previously revealed Fargarth.
Trailer, airships, and platforms
The keynote opened with the full opening cinematic for Evercold and introduced the expansion’s key characters. Two of the five massive airships of the Fourth were shown: the Realmship of Wind, Skidbladnir, and the Realmship of Earth, Sessrymnir.
Evercold launches on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, Windows, Mac, and Steam. The Switch 2 version was first revealed at the April 2026 Fan Festival, alongside the expansion’s January 2027 window.
Announcement timeline
- April 2026, Anaheim Fan Festival: Evercold revealed with a January 2027 window and the Switch 2 version.
- July 2026, Berlin Fan Festival: the reveal cycle’s second stop.
- October 30, 2026, Tokyo Fan Festival keynote: the opening cinematic, February 23 launch, February 19 early access, and November 4 pre-orders.
- November 4, 2026: pre-orders open.
- February 19, 2027: early access begins for pre-order players.
- February 23, 2027: full launch.
What is still unannounced
Square Enix has not yet detailed the expansion’s editions, the Collector’s Edition contents, or pre-order bonus items. Recent Final Fantasy XIV expansions have shipped a standard edition alongside a Collector’s Edition with physical goods, and a pre-order in-game bonus. The benchmark that typically releases ahead of an expansion launch has also not appeared; it lets players test performance on their hardware before the launch. Those details usually follow a Fan Festival keynote in the weeks after the show, and they will determine the price tiers players choose from when pre-orders open in November.
Until Evercold arrives, the live game continues through its 7.x patch series, including recent updates like Patch 7.56 and seasonal content like All Saints’ Wake 2026.
