Final Fantasy XVI: The Rising Tide story expansion is out now, and one of the big advertised features was the addition of the water-themed Leviathan Ikon, but it turns out there’s actually a second new Eikon and set of moves included in The Rising Tide – Ultima. But how do you unlock this semi-secret new Eikon? Scroll on down to find out…
Warning: This article may contain minor Final Fantasy XVI and The Rising Tide spoilers.
The first thing you have to do to get the Ultima Eikon is complete the main The Rising Tide campaign by defeating Leviathan. After you do this, you’ll get a prompt to go check out the Arte Stone in the Hideaway, which is now glowing ominously. Hmmmm!
Interact with the Arte Stone and you’ll find yourself in a cutscene where you gain Ultima’s Eikonic abilities. You then have a brief battle where you can test them out. This also happens to be how you unlike Kairos Gate, a fun mini roguelike battle mode you can work through to earn some cool goodies, including the best weapon in the game.
So, now that you have Ultima’s abilities, how do you use them effectively? The key to Ultima is its Eikonic Feat “Ascension” (the ability tied to the Circle button). This allows Clive to sprout wings and fly around the battlefield and totally changes your basic attacks. While in Ascension mode, your melee attack has great range and your ranged attack is very fast and powerful. Best of all, unlike a lot of other Eikonic Feats, there’s no limit on Ascension – you can fly around to your heart’s content.
As for which of Ultima’s Eikonic abilities to equip, I’d go with Ultimate Demise, a very effective screen-clearing attack, and Voice Of God, which summons a shaft of energy around you, which not only deals heavy damage to enemies, but renders you invincible when it’s active. Ultima’s other two abilities, Dominion and Proselytize are fine, particularly if you want something with a quicker cooldown time, but just aren’t quite as effective.
Ultima will likely be a favorite of a lot of players, as it delivers a lot of damage while being very straightforward to use.
Final Fantasy XVI can be played on PS5. The Rising Tide is out now and can be purchased for $20 a la carte or as part FF16’s $25 Expansion Pass, which also includes the first update, “Echoes of the Fallen.” You can check out Wccftech’s other Final Fantasy XVI guides here.
