Final Fantasy 14 had its 10th anniversary back in September—though the official website‘s been stacking up post after post to celebrate, including some very cute anniversary messages from voice actors, prominent figures, and the father of Final Fantasy himself Hironobu Sakaguchi.
The latest addition to the celebration is pretty incredible to look at. It’s a mosaic of over 20,000 screenshots sent in by the FF14 community, complete with an enlarged version where you can really zoom in and get a good gander. They range from sweet, to gorgeous, to downright cursed—I do not want to know why this bunny boy maid is in an acid pit.
(Image credit: Square Enix.)
The mosaic itself is based on a piece by Yoshitaka Amano for the anniversary itself. Amano is an illustrator and artist who has been creating works for Final Fantasy since the series’ first game—including its iconic logos.
Square Enix collected screenshots during a sweepstakes back in August—which does reveal that certain screenshots were adjusted with a “light-coloured overlay”, but I figure if you’re trying to recreate Amano’s striking art style with 20,000 pictures of catboys, you gotta grease the wheels somehow.
Speaking of, winners also received prizes back in November—Cloud Strife’s hair, a hat that’s just a straight-up cat, barding for their chocobo that kinda makes it look like a mushroom, and an earring of a bird, likely the little one that tells you things.
If these winners actually want to find out where their screenshots are being used, though? Good luck. Square hasn’t given winners any clues as to where in the 20,000-strong mosaic their character appears. Considering the digital paperwork that would be involved, I think that’s fair enough, but ‘congratulations on winning, you now get to play Where’s Waldo with your own character!’ is a very funny outcome.
The celebration also marks the end of a 10-year story arc that concluded with Endwalker—and the start of a new one going into Dawntrail, so it’s nice to see the game celebrated so thoroughly. Dawntrail’s scheduled to release sometime Summer 2024.
