Legendary Final Fantasy 14 player RathGames, who is running the MMO solo as a challenge inspired by Old School RuneScape's iconic Ironman Mode, has now basically managed to clear all of the free pre-Endwalker trial content… entirely on his own.
Well, mostly anyway – he did need to use alternate accounts and team up with fellow solo players for some alliance raids when left with no choice. Nonetheless, that's quite a lot of content to get through on your own.
In case you didn't know, Square Enix expanded the Final Fantasy 14 free trial in April to include its 2019 expansion – and my own personal favorite – Shadowbringers. That's a whole 80 levels of quests and duties, y'all.
Rath started his journey three years ago, asking a question I'd never expect out of an MMO player: "Is it possible to SOLO Final Fantasy 14?" Thus began his mind-boggling challenge, with a video showing him demolish Ifrit all on his own following a very lengthy grind.
Since then, he's taken on many a trial and raid on his lonesome, soloing entire expansions of difficult, story-concluding content… and he's moving pretty quickly, honestly.
In mid-March, he was tackling Hades in The Dying Gasp. Now – right before the release of Patch 7.51 – he's taken down the Warrior of Light in The Seat of Sacrifice, the final main story trial to come out of post-Shadowbringers patches (the keyword here is "main," as there were other trials outside of the MSQ).
It's been a long three days of trying to emerge victorious, but he's done it, with hardly any time to spare ahead of 7.51. The seasoned Final Fantasy 14 veteran announces his win in an online post, simply writing, "It's finally over."
The post comes after his last stream, in which we can watch his victory as it happened live yesterday. "It is done," he says, emerging from The Seat of Sacrifice to a gathering of supportive players using the cheer emote and whatnot – a wholesome scene for sure. This marks the end of the hardest content in the expansion, thankfully.
He's only got some dungeons ahead of him now, and judging by what he's achieved so far, I doubt they'll be much of a problem at all. In other words, Rath has effectively proven that the Free Trial content (I'm just going to count those dungeons, because let's be real here) is doable solo, Ironman Mode and all.
No market board, no help, no anything – and I will not be counting the characters that he had to control himself to bypass Limit Break walls.
They're still him, after all – and as someone who lives in the game's hardcore content myself, I couldn't imagine doing any of what he's spent over a thousand hours now accomplishing. I look forward to seeing what he does when Evercold releases in January 2027.
