In 2021 we got Endwalker; Final Fantasy XIV‘s own end of a 10-year storyline that culminated into an almost masterfully crafted adventure. Dawntrail is the first expansion post-Hydaelyn & Zodiark, so it has a lot to live up to. Final Fantasy XIV has become one of my all-time favourite games and my personal favourite in the franchise. Thanks to its stellar stories, amazing world, and being an MMO that is surprisingly friendly to get into.
On the yawntrail
*Spoilers Warning: Mild Endwalker spoilers*
Following the events of Endwalker, the Final Days have been stopped and the Thirteenth reflection has been saved for now, and in your adventures you come across Wuk Lamat a champion from the far western lands of Tural. You come to Eorzea to pick her warriors to help her win a competition set by the current Dawnservant. The first team to find the city of gold earns the Rite of Succession and becomes the next Dawnservant. Luckily, she has you on her team looking for the next adventure.
Tuliyollal looks absolutely spectacular.
Dawntrail is a much lighter and more relaxed journey for the warrior of light, which is very much needed after battling the embodiment of despair itself. It’s an intriguing premise that starts off strong enough, but doesn’t always keep proper pacing. Then we have the second half and things take a sharp turn, ramping up the pace, but having its own set of problems. There are plenty of good ideas and the themes it presents are compelling, but the storytelling is muddled.
Much of the Scions, including yourself, have been sidelined to give Wuk Lamat the centre stage of this story. This a protagonist I really like; she is a flawed character and our role here is to help her grow and find her path on her journey through the Dawnservant trials. However, Wuk Lamat has already been proven divisive; some people love her and some hate her. Too much happens in the story that revolves around Wuk Lamat and very little about the Warrior of Light or Scion’s own adventures. They are very much spectators in this story and only rarely take an active part in the narrative. Even as someone who enjoys Wuk Lamat’s company I have to agree to focus this much on her wasn’t the best move. Too many characters are pushed aside even when the bulk of her development is completed in the first half.
A better move would be to allow Wuk Lamat to go through her character arc whilst giving the three other contestants more time to shine. It feels a touch rushed and we don’t get their full motivations. Krile, the only one of the scions who also has personal stakes in the competition, doesn’t appear as much as she should. Even the villains who have the potential of being all-time greats aren’t developed anywhere near enough as they should be. We never really get to know them or fully understand their motivations. Saying that, Dawntrail does still have some genuinely touching moments that highlight the emotional core and showcase that, despite some issues, CBU3 can still deliver a compelling narrative.
“Pray return to Wuk Lamat”
Is this a step down from previous expansions? Yes, but this also feels like a reset. How do you go from saving the universe without upping the stakes constantly? Dawntrail sidesteps this by giving it a soft reset. Think of it as a second Realm Reborn-style expansion and unfortunately in doing so brings forward some of the biggest issues from Realm Reborn as well. As a whole Dawntrail’s story just doesn’t hit the mark that it should have. Both halves of the story have some great ideas, but lack in execution and the expansion feels unfocused as a result. It has some serious highs and some strong emotional hooks sitting in long tedious stretches where nothing of substance happens.
Main Scenario Quests
The formula laid out in the past ten years of Final Fantasy XIV has stayed true here. The Main Story Quest starts slow, incredibly slow in fact, as you will be spending the first few hours completely out of combat. It’ll take a good five or so hours before you are even thrown into any sort of combat. Questing is a problem in FFXIV, and unfortunately hasn’t been brought up. There is a lot of walking to spot and interacting with it for up to three times. Or the dreaded stealth sections that have you following a slow moving NPC for an absurd amount of time. It’s infuriating how much the MSQs rely on these.
Saying that, when Dawntrail picks up steam it’s all back on track, with excellent pacing that whilst being lower stakes, is still very much energetic. Solo instances are all excellent and the traditional loop of dungeons and trials whilst predictable, are still well executed. The dungeon format itself is largely the same, dealing with two waves of additional enemy spawns, followed by a boss and repeated two more times per dungeon. It’s a tired format and I wish they would mix it up however whilst the format hasn’t changed the design is exceptional. With some of the best environment designs from CBU3, as well as incredibly engaging boss fights that bring a little bit of challenge back into the dungeons. I was surprised at just how much fun the boss fights were, and what struck me the most was the difficulty of them.
Bakool Ja Ja is the absolute highlight.
Meanwhile, the Trials are just perfect, with some really stellar designs, music, and arenas that feel freshly interesting, and challenging, yet not overwhelming. And that was on normal difficulty. This newfound return to difficult content is a welcome change. I’ve only done the first extreme trial so far and it very much delivers and I’m looking forward to how the rest of them will play out.
Playing through Dawntrail‘s main scenario quests is an interesting experience. From a gameplay perspective, it adds nothing new and can often be borderline tedious and the narrative leaves a lot to be desired, especially when there are around twenty hours of cutscenes and countless dialogue sequences where nothing really happens. One of Final Fantasy XIV’s biggest struggles is having an engaging quest, and that remains true here. A lot of the quests are full of unvoiced cutscenes and world-building. However, all the combat quests including the solo instances, dungeons, and trials all make it worthwhile.
Battle Content
Thankfully, whilst the main story can be a bit of a mixed bag, it’s the other aspects that shine as Dawntrail becomes a vibrant experience that has some of the best battle content in the game now. Five out of the six new locations are absolutely stunning. This is arguably one of the best offerings we’ve had in terms of open-world designs. I’ve even been going through end enjoying FATES in each of the zones this time. The main town hub of Tulliyolal is absolutely magnificent as well. One of the prettiest locations we’ve seen in the game. Plus, the second endgame town hub is so wonderfully different from anything else we’ve seen in-game.
Dawntrail also comes with two new jobs to get accustomed to. First up is the melee DPS: Viper, the first truly original class for Final Fantasy XIV, wielding dual blades that can be joined together for a twin-blade. It feels like a cross between Ninja and Dancer. The combos are fast and fluid, whilst the rotation keeps a solid flow. I wasn’t expecting much from this class pre-launch but it surpassed expectations and has become my go-to class for Level 100 content. (Note: Patch 7.05 did remove Vipers DOT, but in my opinion, this didn’t have a drastic change on the class and is still fast-paced).
Next up we have the Magic DPS: Pictomancer, using the power of aether-infused paintings. This is the more visually striking of the two. Able to paint powerful attacks. I haven’t had the chance to deep dive into the Pictomancer class yet but I have enjoyed what I played. As a whole, these class additions are exciting and should provide a lot of time for any DPS player. Unfortunately, Tanks and Healers are left alone.
Dawntrail’s new trials are masterfully crafted.
Alongside the new classes, all the old classes got a buff as well, moving up to level 100 with a few new skills and abilities. There are tweaks across the board and way too much to delve into here, but it seems that Bard got the overhaul it needed. White Mage finally got its own movement ability as well, able to dash a large distance in an instant which has been absolutely critical in some of the newer content. Unlocking at level 42 means this ability helps White Mage on a lot of older content as well.
As part of the 7.01 patch, we also got introduced to the first Raid of Dawntrail: Arcadion. I of course do not want to spoil it, but this may be my favourite first tier of raids so far. The higher base difficulty that I mentioned earlier also applies to the raids providing arguably the toughest normal difficulty content since Stormblood and I’m here for it. Arcadion has a lot of interesting mechanics, is very fun to play as a healer, and has a unique soundtrack for each of the encounters as well as a few other surprises.
Every bit of battle content is absolutely stellar and props up this expansion that would have otherwise fallen flat. This is some of the best that we’ve seen come out of the game. The increase in difficulty has allowed the normal difficulty content to be pushed a little bit further. It requires a little bit more out of the players yet remains manageable and shouldn’t be too offputting for less-skilled players. If this is the new standard of content for Final Fantasy XIV then the future is exciting.
A fresh coat of paint
One of the biggest features that was talked about pre-launch was the much anticipated and needed graphical update that gives the game a refreshed look. Don’t be expecting it to all of a sudden look like modern AAA games, this is an MMO that needs to run on a wide range of systems after all. As a result, some of the textures and older environments can still look a little lacklustre. Also, the improvements to older gear may still take some time, but for the newer gear, we see a markable improvement, with much more texture depth and colour. Leather actually looks like leather now, whilst shiny surfaces are much more reflective.
Lighting has seen massive improvements, with stronger shadow quality and improvements to foliage that have allowed them to add more dense flora, even in older locations. As for character models, we also see a massive improvement in feeling more life-like with more subtle animations and better lighting. Au Ra saw a significant boost in quality with the scales now having so much more depth and texture to them. Then we have the new female Hrothgar playable race, which is easily one of the best new additions to the game.
FFXIV’s engine upgrade allows much more detailed environments.
As always Soken is back to deliver the soundtrack. It’s not as powerful as Endwalker or Final Fantasy XVI’s absolutely stellar soundtrack, but it was never going to be. Saying that it’s more experimental and unique, the main turali theme is amazing but the vocal version just doesn’t hit. But as is typical for this expansion, it’s in the battle content where the music also shines. Every single raid, trial, and dungeon all have excellent music that propels excellent content to the next level. The final raid sounds like something pulled out of Astral Chain rather than Final Fantasy, and I’m all for it.
Unfortunately, the voice directing does fall a little flat. There’s a lot of good moments throughout but the delivery just doesn’t work here. Often times during dramatic sequences characters sound like they are screaming in lowercase. It’s the first time in over 300 hours of the main story quests in Final Fantasy XIV I’ve considered switching to the Japanese voiceover.
What’s Next?
As is standard for any MMO the launch of the expansion is just the beginning and sets the stage for the next two years worth of content. What we have at launch is already meaty enough but nothing outside of the ordinary for Final Fantasy XIV releases. There’s going to be the standard array of trials and dungeons, which I hope keep the same level of quality. A new activity called Cosmic Exploration will be introduced on top of another Bozja-style warzone space. We haven’t really heard much about these, but they should be entertaining.
Heading out to explore the new world.
In terms of raids, we’ve had the first tier of the Arcadia series of raids that delivered one of the best normal-tier raid experiences to date, with two more to go over the coming two years. This is the same for the 24-Player Grand Alliance Raids “Echoes of Vana’diel”, we haven’t seen this yet, but it promises to be a big crossover event with the other Final Fantasy MMO; Final Fantasy XI. Raids have always been the best content in this game, and I really hope that continues going forward, pushing the content even further.
A new story will play out alongside these as well, and I’m interested in seeing where these go. Endwalker‘s post-launch story wasn’t the greatest, but it really did help set things up for the future to delve into, and Dawntrail didn’t capitalise on that as much as it should. Going forward, I would love to see a bit more focus on diversifying the gameplay loop for the story quests and giving the Warrior of Light a more active role in the story again. We don’t need to be the driving point all the time, but I would like active participation again. Hopefully, YoshiP and CBU3 look at what didn’t work in this expansion and strive to improve on it over the next two years.
Dawntrail
Dawntrail’s dungeon design is familiar, but its encounter design is the best in the game.
As far as expansions go, Dawntrail plays things relatively safe, with the same game design that has kept the game going strong for ten years. Whilst the structure of the expansion may be getting tiresome for some, this is also some of the best content that has been pushed out. Every dungeon, trial, and raid that has been released so far for Dawntrail has been top-tier.
The story won’t be to everyone’s liking. A soft refresh that focuses on an entirely new character that is seemingly getting a mixed reaction from the community is an incredibly bold move. But in my opinion, outside of some rough pacing isn’t that bad. In many ways, it takes a lot of elements from A Realm Reborn and Stormblood, both good and bad, so if you liked those expansions then you will pretty much like this one as well.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail had a lot to live up to following the excellent legacy left behind by Shadowbringers and Endwalker. It doesn’t always hit the mark with incredibly slow opening hours and odd choices that permeate the entire expansion but there’s a lot to like about it as well. The battle content, soundtrack, and some impactful moments all come together to help push up an otherwise struggling expansion and this makes it a mostly excellent addition.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
A copy of Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail was provided by the publisher.
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