Recently, a snow sculpture from 2018 that was dedicated to Final Fantasy 14 made its way into textbooks across Japan. Some pictures from the textbooks were taken and shared across social media, and fans of Final Fantasy 14 were quick to point out where and when the sculpture was made, as well as the context behind the sculpture's subject.Final Fantasy 14 recently released Patches 6.3 and 6.31 within two weeks of one another. The first of the two included the bulk of the content, such as new main story content, job balance updates, and some quality-of-life updates to existing features. On January 24, Patch 6.31 for Final Fantasy 14 was released, which brought the Omega Protocol (Ultimate) raid into the forefront. Some of the game's top raiding teams are still working on taking down the encounter at the time of writing, with a few of them briefly reaching the third phase of the encounter.While the Omega Protocol may invoke memories of the Stormblood expansion, its predecessor Heavensward was the focus of the snow sculpture that recently made its way into textbooks. On Twitter, Aitai Kuji CEO Audrey Lamsam stated that the snow sculpture in question was originally built in Sapporo in 2018 for the 69th Sapporo Snow Festival. It depicted the Heavensward expansion's climactic battle between Estinien the Azure Dragoon and the shade of the great wyrm Nidhogg, one of the expansion's main antagonists. Their battle took up a majority of the sculpture, which also featured the game's Mothercrystal in the center.
Though Nidhogg was among the First Brood of Dragons on Eorzea, his shade haunted the nation of Ishgard for centuries and served as one of the major plot points within Heavensward. The sculpture that memorialized an unforgettable moment in Final Fantasy 14 will now live on in the textbooks of Japanese social studies students, as shown by pictures taken by Japanese Twitter users. According to one user, the snow sculpture was featured at least three times in a textbook, which featured pictures of both the sculpture and the onlookers that were at the 69th Sapporo Snow Festival.
When Final Fantasy 14 expanded its free trial in 2020, it included the entire story of both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, including the battle with Nidhogg. Though no snow sculptures like the one in Sapporo are in the game, prospective players that want to experience the battle with Nidhogg for themselves can do so at no cost.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5.
Source: Siliconera