BODY: After years of waiting, Square Enix finally shipped the Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Final Fantasy XIV on August 4, and one enterprising GAME Watch writer decided a normal review wouldn't do. Instead, they packed the handheld and made a pilgrimage to the Tottori Sand Dunes—Japan's most famous stretch of windswept sand—to cosplay as a Warrior of Light in the closest real-world analog to Eorzea's Sagolii Desert.
The premise is gloriously simple: the Switch 2's portability means you can now play the MMO practically anywhere, so why not somewhere that actually looks like the game? The Sagolii Desert, tucked into southern Thanalan, is one of FFXIV's rare arid expanses, and the Tottori dunes—rolling, sun-baked, and stretching toward the Sea of Japan—make a startlingly convincing stand-in.
Beyond the photo-op stunt, the piece doubles as a hands-on look at how the venerable MMO runs on Nintendo's new hardware. The Switch 2 version brings FFXIV to a Nintendo platform for the first time, letting players adventure in docked mode at home or in true handheld form out in the field. Battling primals with the ocean breeze and real sand underfoot is, by the writer's account, a surreal but oddly fitting way to experience the game.
The result is equal parts travelogue, hardware impression, and love letter to a title that's spent over a decade defying expectations after its infamous 2010 launch and legendary A Realm Reborn comeback.
The insider take
This kind of playful, on-location "let's actually go there" journalism is a beloved staple of Japanese game media, where outlets like GAME Watch regularly turn a launch into a field trip. For a Nintendo audience, the Switch 2 edition is a genuinely big deal—FFXIV has never lived on a Nintendo console before—and pairing it with Tottori, a rural prefecture that leans hard into its dune tourism (it even has a sand museum), is a canny bit of cross-promotion. Expect plenty more Japanese players snapping "Warrior of Light in the wild" shots this summer.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).