Platforms:
PS4, PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Mac
Released:
July 2, 2024
Publisher:
Square Enix
Developer:
Square Enix
As the first new expansion after the final chapter of the Ascians, Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail had a tough act to follow. What stakes could Dawntrail possibly have compared to Endwalker, or even Shadowbringers before it? The trailer for the expansion seems to embrace this, billing itself as a well-deserved vacation of sorts from the end-of-day scenarios the warrior of light is used to settling. And despite some frustrations with its overall narrative, I’m enjoying my vacation in sunny Tural.
Dawntrail brings your warrior of light plus select members of your entourage over the ocean to Toral, a large continent that is basically Fantasy America. The first half of Dawntrail focuses on the changeover of power within Yax Toral (Fantasy pre-colonial South America), which involves a hunt for a legendary “Golden City,” obviously inspired by the real myth of the city of El Dorado.
When the game’s previous expansion Endwalker released in 2021, the game’s servers proved unable to handle the sheer number of players. No such server issues occurred this time around, which is likely partly thanks to the additional Oceania server for players in and around Australia. As the newest server, it is the least occupied, so there was not even any extended wait time to play apart from the very first night of early access, in which the wait was only about 10-15 minutes. It’s great to see the launch of a FFXIV expansion go so much smoother than last time.
If you are like me, after years of playing the stoic-faced little warrior of light, you have formed quite the attachment to them, so you may spend the first hour or two after logging in oohing and aahing at the minute differences you notice in your warrior. I can’t tell you how good it feels to log into a game that now has somewhat contemporary graphics after years of looking distinctly PS3-core. Special care has been given to the important NPCs like the scions, but even unimportant NPCs look noticeably better. My warrior of light is an Au ra (the race with dragon-like features), so the updated textures are immediately apparent by looking at her scales, which no longer look like a pixel nightmare. I’m excited now to replay some previous plotlines to see how certain characters might look with the improved graphics. I should note that the update may cause some inconsistent FPS depending on your PC due to the increased demand on your graphics card, which I hope will be addressed in upcoming patches. Not everything has been given a facelift though; some outfits and objects still look a little low-res.
Dawntrail offers some of the best dungeon and trial designs we’ve seen to date, which is exactly what we want to see after 5 expansions. Final Fantasy XIV has boss fights down pat; attacks are telegraphed fairly but are still difficult, and each one is different enough that the dungeons don’t blend together into an unmemorable mess. Tweaks have been made to the existing pool of jobs that balance out the skills and abilities; while I imagine not everyone is happy with the changes, I am very pleased with the changes to the jobs that I enjoy, which I am finding more engaging to play.
The new jobs offered in Dawntrail are the melee DPS Viper, and the ranged magical DPS Pictomancer. As a melee DPS main I picked Viper of the two, and quickly came to enjoy it very much despite its high learning curve. It requires heavy use of directionals and also utilises many skills that turn into other skills when under the right conditions, which is always difficult to wrap your head around, but when done right, the damage output is rewarding. That said, its aesthetics don’t stand out much from other melee DPS jobs that already exist, unlike Pictomancer. Pictomancer is a stark contrast to any other job that’s come before, and I appreciate it just for that. Its bright, colourful abilities and skills steal the show in any party.
Just like Endwalker, this new expansion doesn’t include any new job quests for any of the existing jobs, only role quests for Healer, Tank, and the various DPS roles. I understand that there are so many jobs at this point that anything more would be a lot of work, but still, I must dream that someday Square Enix will grant my wish.
A story that trails
Dawntrails’s story is generally enjoyable overall, but also frustrating with its missteps. I thought that Stormblood, which received many complaints about its pacing, would have taught them a lesson, but it seems not. It makes sense that Dawntrail might take longer to amp up than previous expansions, as it must establish places, characters and history brand new to Final Fantasy XIV. Tural is a fascinating place and packs a punch visually with tonnes of bright colours, so learning its history was fun, but something might have been done to mitigate the slowness of levels 90-through-93, which consists largely of doing busywork for Tural’s village elders.
The star NPC of this expansion is Wuk Lamat, one of four potential successors to the Tural throne, who seeks the warrior of light’s aid in helping her beat out her competition. Her father, the current ruler, has decided that the first of his children to find the Golden City will succeed him. While undoubtedly a far simpler premise than we’ve seen in previous expansions, the simplicity doesn’t mean it’s bad. I had high hopes for where the narrative was going, sure that the building tensions between Wuk Lamat and her rival competitors would lead somewhere interesting.
“Dawntrails’s story is generally enjoyable overall, but also frustrating with its missteps.”
Wuk Lamat is what I like to call a “Naruto-like”, a character who is an enthusiastic and cheerfully brash personality who is quick to anger but also fast to forgive, easily turning enemies into allies once they’re beaten with a hearty speech about togetherness and friendship. She’s a “good” ruler, by which I mean that she likes peace, not war, and that when her subjects ask her for help, she says “Yes of course!”, not “Get out of my way, peasant!”. Her only apparent character flaw is that she is hesitant to admit when she needs help, which is a ‘flaw’ in the same way that you might claim that “being too independent” is a flaw during a job interview. It’s a character type that we’ve all seen before, but that by itself is not a problem; I adore her. I just wished her character arc had given me something more nuanced to chew on.
Dawntrail does attempt to deepen its narrative after level 95, but it does so in a very strange way. It abruptly shifts genres, introducing a brand new threat very suddenly. It has to slow down again to introduce an entirely new batch of characters, places, and history, and its pacing never really recovers from this. I wanted to enjoy the turn the story took, I appreciated the themes it wanted to impart, and I can even imagine how it easily could have been a satisfying bookend to the first half, if only it had been properly set up instead of being shoved next to the first half like a jigsaw piece that didn’t quite fit. It has its effect on the emotional anchors of the narrative, too; there are a few character moments that would have been tear-jerkers had we had more time to spend with them.
7.5
Good
Positive:
- Duty and Trial mechanics are some of FFXIV's best
- The new world of Tural is bright, interesting, and lore-rich
- Job tweaks add depth to battle
Negative:
- A few too many "busywork" quests
- Inexplicable pacing decisions limit the impact of the story
Dawntrail has the benefit of years of gameplay and graphical improvements, and puts them to great use in designing some of the best dungeons and trials we’ve seen to date. However, its confused story prevents it from reaching its full potential, and will likely bump Dawntrail down to the bottom-to-middle of most player’s tier lists. These issues aren’t enough to ruin the experience though, so it’s still a good time for Final Fantasy XIV players.
About the Author
Edie W-K
she/her
If it isn't video games, Edie doesn't care about it. She's been playing games since the N64 era, and only spent enough time away from her 3DS to earn a Bachelor in Games Design from RMIT.
