Arkveld Arrives In Eorzea As The Final Fantasy XIV Monster Hunter Collaboration Continues
With the launch of the latest patch of Final Fantasy XIV, the Monster Hunter collaboration has also arrived; previously, Omega Weapon arrived in Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds as part of the franchise crossover. This challenging fight forced hunters to rise up even on the standard version of the fight, but now things have kicked up a notch for FFXIV players as the dreaded Arkveld has arrived in the world of Eorzea to challenge adventurers.
It’s A Wild One Out There
Not only is the fight overall pretty fun, but it is also a permanent addition to the game alongside the previous Rathalos encounter. If you participate in the battle, you will also receive a 745 weapon just for defeating the Normal Mode version of the fight. Though it isn’t necessarily the best fight we’ve seen, it’s a fun romp and doesn’t take too long to complete, so the weapon is a great way to help returning players catch up with the current Ilvl, or for equipping on jobs that you may not use often but want to try out sometimes for casual content.
The weapon designs are also straight out of Monster Hunter, including having some unique weapons for both Gunbreaker and Monk, as those jobs do not exist inside the Monster Hunter Wilds universe. I personally am a huge fan of the Black Mage Hammer, and I also really like that the White Mage receives the Switch Axe as its design.
Challenge Accepted
Along with the Normal Mode, there is also a harder Extreme version of the fight; this version is much more challenging but has the unique reward of a different mount as a drop from it, so for those people out there that are mount collectors, this might be something to aim for. Plus, if you are able to clear the Extreme version of the fight enough times, you will be able to augment the base weapon to a higher ilvl; this will take it to 760, which for a lot of people will be one of the best in slot for your job. Still, this does involve clearing the hard fight!
Elsewhere, there are music scrolls, housing items and much more that can be obtained from the event that are uniquely tied to the Monster Hunter universe. One big issue some players have, however, is that before entering the fight, you can do a cooking emote and eat some delicious-looking meat. But the player has no way to access this emote outside the area. I personally was at least hoping the housing item would give access to the animation scene, but even that is lacking in the animation.
The fight itself also feels more like a Final Fantasy XIV fight rather than a Monster Hunter one; the previous Rathalos battle was very much taking combat from the Monster Hunter game and implementing it into the fight. I do like that you still have to carve the monster’s hide for some rewards after the battle, and you do have access to Mega Potions as an action button. However, in the previous battle, healing from regular sources really didn’t work, though I am happy the annoying stun isn’t back; that made the fight irritating.
King Titania Summons You!
Also included with the 7.35 patch was a new deep dungeon called Pilgrim’s Traverse. This is a unique deep dungeon in which you can actually clear it with a matched party. Previous deep dungeons have been limited to fixed parties only, which means you have a full group when entering; matched allows you to use the duty finder to progress in floors. There are 100 floors, though as always the 100th floor is just a location to take a screenshot to show that you have cleared the event. As of writing, I recently hit the 50th floor myself.
There are some pretty glamorous and other mounts that can be accessed from working on the new Pilgrim’s Traverse, and much more that has dropped in the patch along with this content, including
- New Allied Society Quests – Yok Huy
- Inconceivably Further Hildibrand Adventures
Remember, if you want to check some of our other Final Fantasy XIV content, we have many different articles covering the game, including our most recent article on player names.
