Final Fantasy XIV is at the center of this year’s traditional Snow Festival in Sapporo. The reason for this is the massive snow sculpture of the two characters from the expansion “Heavensward”: the Dragoon Estinien and his opponent Nidhogg.
The festival began in 1950 as a small student-organized event in Odori Park, Sapporo, and has grown over the years into one of the largest and most important winter events in the world, with up to two million visitors annually.
Preparation phase lasted several months
The participation of FFXIV in the Sapporo Snow Festival was announced during the Producer’s Letter on December 15th. At that time, preparations for the festival were already in full swing.
The snow sculpture is named “The Silver Battle”. The soldiers of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force began constructing it in mid-January, as the Japanese military has traditionally participated in the festival since 1955.
The process could be followed live via a static camera stream on the Square Enix homepage.
Over 3000 tons of snow for the construction
Since the statue of FFXIV is one of the central exhibits of this year’s festival, the director and producer Naoki Yoshida had the honor of giving a speech at the official opening.
The sculpture is 22 meters long, 15 meters high and deep, and very detailed. For instance, one can see the decorations on Estinien’s weapon in the festival photos.
An estimated 3250 tons of snow were needed for its construction, transported to the construction site by 5-ton trucks.
This is accompanied by a cool light show depicting the battle between Estinien and Nidhogg, and of course ending with the Dragoon’s victory and the Final Fantasy victory fanfare.
ヒカセンの皆さん。
御堪能下さい(｡･ω･｡)#FF14 #FFXIV #白銀の決戦 #さっぽろ雪まつり pic.twitter.com/DkfAMzuFOK— セート (FF14Titan鯖) (@onikudaisuki123) February 5, 2018
As last year, the sculpture is in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Final Fantasy series.
Live Stream from Sapporo
On February 10th, Yoshida will broadcast the next Producer’s Letter live from Sapporo. The composer and sound director of FFXIV, Masayoshi Soken, will be a special guest.
In addition to new information about the long-awaited content “Forbidden Land Eureka” and further updates in Patch 4.25, direct questions from players will also be answered, which may be posed in a thread in the official forums.
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