Square Enix has announced the schedule for Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2026, starting with a location change in the U.S. The first event will now take place in Anaheim, California, at the Anaheim Convention Center from April 24 to 25, 2026. Most fans will likely agree that moving it from Las Vegas in the summer to Southern California in April is better for everyone involved. The European Fan Festival will run July 25 to 26 in Berlin, Germany, at Messe Berlin (hub27). The final stop on next year’s tour is Makuhari Messe in Tokyo, Japan, on October 31 to November 1.
These dates are telling, as they historically hint at when the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion will launch. If the team at Creative Studio III follows tradition, 8.0 likely won’t drop until sometime between February and May 2027. For comparison, Dawntrail officially released on July 2, 2024, while Fan Festival 2024 in Tokyo took place January 7 to 8. The wait from Tokyo Fan Fest to the releases of Stormblood and Shadowbringers was shorter, around three months. Another hope is that Fan Festival 2026 will line up with the expansion’s release, meaning it could drop shortly after Tokyo Fan Fest, in time for the holiday season.
I’m very interested to see how the team will address the criticisms of the Dawntrail expansion and its post-release content schedule. Things have slowed down for Final Fantasy XIV, and this is the first time since Stormblood that I haven’t logged in as soon as a major content patch is released. While I knew Dawntrail wouldn’t live up to Shadowbringers or Endwalker, Final Fantasy XIV remains committed to the same release cadence as past expansions, even though this new storyline was a chance to change up the formula and keep things exciting for veterans.
