Every year Final Fantasy XIV celebrates the holiday season with the appropriately named “Starlight Celebration”. This year’s celebration will begin on December 15 and carry on until December 31. Final Fantasy XIV regularly hosts holiday events and each time and there’s a few things players need to know.
Before you begin to stress the time limited nature of the event (after all, not everyone wants to spend the holiday season on an MMO), there’s two important things to know about holiday events in this game. First, the holiday rewards often make appearances on the MogStation cash shop a year after the event, that means we can expect last year’s Starlight Celebration goodies to be released any day now; so don’t worry that this is your only chance. The second thing to remember is that these events typically only take a about an hour to follow through to their conclusion, in recent years the seasonal event quests have taken place almost entirely in the major city they’re found in. This means no globe-spanning fetch quests.
The only thing players do miss out on is the unique story for each year’s event quest, for instance one year’s Starlight Celebration had players cheering up a young boy who’s father wouldn’t be home for the holidays. Then, just last year players helped a very festive baby yeti celebrate the holidays and he even had a little reindeer costume. These quests are quick and have no impact on the overall plot of the game, but they’re cute diversions and almost always fun to watch.
This year’s exclusive Starlight Celebration rewards include the Starlight Steed Horn, an item which will unlock the Starlight Steed mount. Don’t let the name fool you, this isn’t some plain old horse with some decoration, it’s a bona fide reindeer. Players will also be able to buy an Illuminated Tree decoration which they can use to spruce up their lawn. That is, if you’re one of the few lucky enough to own real estate in Final Fantasy XIV.
It’s nice to have some holidays in between patches, Final Fantasy XIV is expecting to release patch 6.3 sometime in January. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays and maybe grind out some Irregular Tomestones and special items during the Moogle Treasure Trove event!
Final Fantasy XIV is available now on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. The Starlight Celebration will be running from December 15 to December 31.