FFXIV’s Dragonsong Reprise Raid Finally Gets World First Clear

The Dragonsong’s Reprise Ultimate raid was added to Final Fantasy XIV last week in Patch 6.11, and the challenging gauntlet of boss battles has finally been cleared for the first time. The world’s first Dragonsong’s Reprise clear was achieved by a raiding team called Neverland, marking this group’s first world first title for any Ultimate content.

The race to world first has been a close one, and many groups have been tirelessly progressing through the content since it was released on April 26. While the world first title has finally been claimed, simply clearing the content at all is more than enough of a consolation prize for everyone still trying to get through.

Ultimate raids are the hardest level of content in Final Fantasy XIV, wildly surpassing even the Savage raid tier that most average players struggle with. To put things in perspective, Final Fantasy XIV has three other Ultimate raids: Unending Coil of Bahamut (UCoB),  The Weapon’s Refrain (UWU), and The Epic of Alexander (TEA). The Unending Coil of Bahamut took 11 days to see its first clear, while UWU and TEA took a few days each. Most Savage raids see their first clear in under a day.

Ultimate raids pit players against a gauntlet of bosses from previous FFXIV expansions, requiring them to defeat all of them in a single run with much more complicated mechanics than ever before. Dragonsong’s Reprise is a retelling of the Dragonsong War, the central conflict of the award-winning Heavensward expansion. As such, players face familiar foes from that expansion and even come face to face with old friends in the process.

That’s all you really need to know about the raid, but if you want to know how things ended up in this retelling of the Dragonsong War, keep reading on. Spoilers for Heavensward and the raid follow below, obviously.

Spoilers for Heavensward and Dragonsong’s Reprise Follow Below

The initial part of Dragonsong’s Reprise requires players to defeat King Thordan and the Knights of the Heavens’ Ward, the central antagonists of the Heavensward expansion.  Everyone’s favorite friend Haurchefaunt appears and sacrifices himself once more during the fight, and everything proceeds as it happened canonically.

However, the raid eventually takes a turn and allows players to play through a “what if” scenario of the Dragonsong War where Haurchefaunt and other allies were saved. This then allowed Thordan to reach Azys Lla and accomplish his goals without being stopped by the Warrior of Light, leading to an all-new boss battle involving Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr. The entire fight is a sight to behold, and it’s a huge bit of fanservice that’s an adequate reward for players dedicated enough to reach that point in the Ultimate raid.

Final Fantasy XIV is available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.