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Final Fantasy XIV is 1st Video Game Float to Sail at Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Sydney's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras welcomed its first video game float this year with a Moogle, Cactuar, and Cherry Bomb creatures sailing through the festivities on Saturday. Final Fantasy XIV monsters appeared alongside 80 marchers made up from members of both the Final Fantasy XIV Online and Sydney Gaymers' communities. The revelry took place around the float under the banner "Realms United."
The collaboration was first announced in February 2019, and marks the coming together of Australia's 2,600-strong Sydney Gaymer community with the critically-acclaimed MMO.
Final Fantasy XIV Online producer and director Naoki Yoshida stated the following about the collaboration:
This collaboration could never have been realized without the efforts of our community. When FFXIV took part in PAX Australia, it was the FFXIV players in Australia who offered us the greatest welcome and utmost support. This led on to our community and Sydney Gaymers working together to make the collaboration a reality. To see it makes me very happy indeed, both as the person in charge of FFXIV and also as just another player of the game. FFXIV is another world that continues to grow and expand online. In that world people become adventurers, known as the Warriors of Light, and can continue to be free. I would like to continue developing this world, hand in hand with communities across the globe.
The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is an annual two-week long festival to celebrate the power and diversity of the LGBTQI+ community, culminating in a parade through central Sydney. Sydney Gaymers entered its fifth year participating in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade in 2019.
Sydney Gaymers organizer Peak Distapan said, "Sydney Gaymers is thrilled to be collaborating with Final Fantasy XIV Online for its 2019 float entry, titled Realms United. It means so much to receive direct support, validation and acknowledgement from such a force in the industry. Not only that, to be supported by a game where so much of our community and values are represented. The Final Fantasy XIV Online community does not discriminate and respects everyone's freedom and their individual values equally. For many LGBTQI+ people, online communities provide a space for the journey and exploration of personal identities They allow us to connect, and celebrate, and they reinforce that we are not alone. Sydney Gaymers could not have a better sponsor to help create the most ambitious float it has ever undertaken.”
The Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn MMORPG will launch its "Shadowbringers" expansion on July 2. The expansion will include multiple new jobs, the new playable Viera race, battle system maintenance, new high-end raids, new areas, new gear, new recipes, and a new game+ mode to replay old content.
Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV Online for personal computers in September 2010. After criticism from fans, the company revealed an updated version of the game titled Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn that added a new world and story. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launched on Windows PC and PS3 in August 2013, and then on PS4 in April 2014. The game's companion app for iOS and Android launched in August.
