Editorials
The Latest ‘Final Fantasy XIV’ Crossover Event Shows ‘Nier: Automata’ Fits Right in With the MMORPG Giant
What’s the best way to make a successful expansion even better? You create more successful content., of course. This is the classic not-as-simple-as-it-sounds technique, but Yoshi-P and Co. keep finding new ways to liven up Final Fantasy XIV. With the newest push of content comes a brand new raid, The Copied Factory, with inspirations from the Nier franchise that work like a dream in the MMO formula; and, as Jean-Paul from Nier: Automata says, “Dreams are the mind’s version of reality perfected.”
From start to finish, six different boss fights fill The Copied Factory, each offering new variations of mechanics seen throughout FFXIV’s history. With the only weak outlier being the third fight, the range of fights feels unique enough from each other to keep you on your toes. I have to say that my favorite fight, mechanically speaking, is against the first boss, Serial-Joined Command Model. Lasers blast you from the periphery, all while orbs drop from rotating dispensers, keeping you on your toes at all times.
Lore-wise, the best fights are the third and the final ones. Engels comes straight from the opening fight in Nier: Automata, coupling an oversized enemy with heavy-hitting attacks if you so much as misstep. The final fight has a fair few phases, which are pretty straightforward, but the appeal comes in the scene the raid sets. You are caught in the middle of the epic showdown between 9S and 2B (well, 2P in FFXIV).
The over-the-top, screen-filling waves of orbs and action from the Nier franchise fits so well into FFXIV. The way that raid success depends on navigating boss mechanics has that similar strategic feel the Nier titles are known for. Orbs fly all over, lasers blast every which way, and survival is only as reliable as your efforts to stay out of their way. Oddly enough, this Nier-FFXIV mashup works almost better than other Final Fantasy mashups XIV has done previously.
On the FFXIV side of things, The Copied Factory benefits from an adjustment to gear distribution. The previous content push required players to farm events to collect multiple dropped items to exchange for gear pieces, with weekly limits in place to elongate playtime. This time around, actual pieces of gear drop, but the trade-off comes in the form of weekly limitations: one, in fact. You can only win one piece of gear each week, which follows a similar pattern to last expansion, but the farming time is reduced this time around.
The other tradeoff is a full glamour set. Upon defeating the last boss, the raid group can roll the dice to obtain a full set of glamour gear inspired by the queen herself, 2B. So, even though the gear looks exactly like the raid gear, you’ll have to apply them to your existing gear in order to fight anything. If you try to raid in the level 1 glamour gear… well, good luck to you.
It will be a few months before more of this crossover content will hit FFXIV, but the first round of said content has an intrigue all its own. You may have noticed that I didn’t mention much of the story here. I intentionally neglected to mention the narrative revolving around The Copied Factory because, well, I didn’t have the heart to spoil any of the interactions and shenanigans revolving around the two dwarves you work with. They’re just too great.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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