I don’t have a great memory, so what I remember of Final Fantasy 14’s 1.0 release is pretty dim considering it launched all the way back in 2010. Lurking deep in the back of my mind is a shared level bar across roles, a confusing armor system that had no restrictions and instead scaled gear based on your current level, and, of course, the dreaded TP bar. I think I still have some useless items from those dark days lingering on a retainer somewhere attracting dust.
What I remember more so is the story. A blonde female NPC called Ascilia getting near trampled to death by a goobbue in Ul’dah didn’t feel overly interesting at the time. I didn’t care and wanted to get on with exploring Eorzea. Things got better as the narrative and gameplay set the scene for what would come later with Garleans, Ascians, and the Echo, though l don’t remember anything ever gripping me back then.
1.0 was a diamond in the rough, not just in terms of mechanics and gameplay, but narrative too. With the launch of A Realm Reborn, the original 1.0 storyline was given added value by expanding on the concepts and giving the characters a much-needed physical and developmental glow-up, as well as all those fancy gameplay changes that made the game go from a failure to an award-winner. Knowledge of what Eorzea used to be carried over to this new vision in a way few games have managed to replicate since.
That little girl I didn’t care for grew into Minfilia, who at the time had a very standard appearance. In fact, she looked like little more than a blonde version of my own character. In ARR, she took on a more iconic role with a unique appearance. Another good example is the 1.0 Ascians, who were quite a bit different and looked more like grim reaper monsters than actual people — a look that was later re-used for Ascian Prime in The Aetherochemical Research Facility.
Nearly all of the events from 1.0 are canonical to ARR. I say nearly all because there are a few little niggles that don’t fit the current lore or that were retconned, but the team went to great lengths to keep the history of the world intact. Even the reshaping of the in-game world was explained with 1.0 ending in the Fall of Dalamud where Bahamut Mega-flared the world enough to revamp it in a similar way to how World of Warcraft reshaped areas with its Cataclysm expansion.
1.0’s events are mentioned countless times throughout ARR and all the expansions that would follow. It’s a history that your Warrior of Light is well acquainted with, even if you didn’t personally play and witness the legacy version yourself anymore. It’s a shame this integral part of FF14’s history is no longer accessible.
While the content was largely mediocre, it had its moments. I would love to replay it — despite its issues — as with the gift of hindsight, I’d be able to appreciate how those first formative ideas grew into the story I know and love today. A part of me also wants to remind myself what 1.0 was like beyond the storyline. I know I’d spend most of my time groaning and complaining about features and mechanics if I did, but I have an insatiable morbid curiosity to revisit the game at its worst.
I doubt we’ll ever get access to the content again. We’ll never get something like Blizzard’s vanilla WoW launch, as players liked the base game there, whereas FF14 1.0 was a notorious disaster. However, you can still check out the old 1.0 cutscenes on YouTube, and I recommend you should. The 1.0 cutscenes were fantastic as they were spared no expense and used mocap to give the characters more natural movement. The downside was that this elaborate process meant we had fewer cutscenes, so you can see why the team opted to scrap this for ARR onwards.