Two and a half years ago, Square Enix’s Creative Studio 3 achieved the impossible with Final Fantasy XIV’s Endwalker expansion: they brought a decade of storytelling to an epic, satisfying conclusion and became the biggest MMORPG in the world, even taking the throne from long-reigning champion World of Warcraft.
Now, they’re set to open a whole new chapter for the long-running game with a new expansion, Dawntrail, which launches officially on July 2. CGM was invited to Los Angeles for a hands-on preview of its fresh offerings, and it looks like a promising new day is about to break for the game’s faithful player base.
[Disclaimer: This article is based on play of an in-development build of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.]
With Dawntrail imminent, Final Fantasy XIV has now surpassed 30 million active players, up considerably from the 24 million it had achieved before Endwalker’s release in December 2021. The size and wholesome reputation of the game’s community is not lost on its director and producer, Naoki Yoshida, who reflected on the milestone during a presentation to the media.
“As an online game player in general, just looking at the player community of Final Fantasy XIV makes me realize how everybody is so kind to each other. Everybody has such passion for what they play, and it’s such a wholesome, encouraging community. That is what we are very proud of.”
“This first hands-on taste of Dawntrail‘s graphic upgrade was promising—and given the diverse flora and fauna of Tural, this is a perfect time for Final Fantasy XIV’s facelift.”
Yoshida shared that, after announcing a promotional partnership between the game and Mountain Dew, that he was sent a bottle with a personal note from a Pepsi employee, who told him that the game had changed their life.
“It feels like we’re reaching out to people out there, all our Warriors of Light,” Yoshida said. “Even if it’s a partnership with an external company, it’s not just a business partnership, it’s with players.”
New Dawn In A New Land
Endwalker brought an end to the “Hydaelyn & Zodiark Saga,” the overarching storyline that united the first decade of Final Fantasy XIV. Players journeyed to the ends of the earth, fought unthinkable foes, and staved off the apocalypse once again. Now, with Dawntrail, all bets are off, and players will literally see a brand-new side of the game world.
Players will venture to a new region on the Source, far to the west of the world they know so far: the continent of Tural. While Final Fantasy XIV has already explored a wide array of geographical regions, Tural is the most visually and culturally distinct, as I saw in my time with a development build of Dawntrail.
These environments looked all the better immediately for a new graphical overhaul instituted in this expansion. Final Fantasy XIV is getting a considerable facelift for the first time since A Realm Reborn launched (on PS3 and PC) in 2013. This will bring the MMORPG closer in line with modern tech, though the effect may be subtle during actual gameplay.
The playable build presented in this preview was not the final, as the team at Creative Studio 3 is still fine-tuning the visuals for launch. Yet, this first hands-on taste of Dawntrail‘s graphic upgrade was promising, bringing fresh life to character models and textures—and given the diverse flora and fauna of Tural, this is a perfect time for Final Fantasy XIV‘s facelift.
Tuliyollal, one of the new hub cities, demonstrates the upgrade with a vast swath of different settings. From the red-roofed buildings to the streamers strung over the streets, to vendors’ stalls to the rippling water by the harbour, up to the grand palace at the town’s peak and the massive stone walls behind it all, there’s a new vitality and depth in this corner of the Source.
A few other sites around Yok Tural were available, and they equally impressed. The Urqopacha region, with its more arid environment and subdued palette, serves as a stark counterpoint to the more vibrant vegetation of Kozama’uka, the region outside Tuliyollal. Even the level 91 dungeon, Ihuykatumu, offered a more bombastic experience, starting off with a chase on a rushing river.
Naturally, these new areas are infused with the delightful compositions of Masayoshi Soken, who adds a new dimension to the environment. I admit I wasn’t the biggest fan of Dawntrail‘s theme song before, but after hearing a few variations on it used expertly throughout this preview, I’m a believer.
By this small taste of Dawntrail‘s new ports of call, this expansion should be the most visually stimulating since Shadowbringers took players to a different world altogether. (And who knows what splendours await in the rest of the New World, like the futuristic city Solution 9?)
Through my preview time, the visual upgrade soon became an afterthought unless I took the time to focus on it. It was hard to fully appreciate without any of the game’s cutscenes to truly savour it—but then, returning to the regular game when I got home was a big wake-up. The enhancement doesn’t make FFXIV a challenger for next-gen-native games, but the game sorely needs it to stay relevant, and simple things like improved lighting and more natural textures can go a very long way.
(Players can get a taste of it for themselves with the official Dawntrail Benchmark software, which updated to version 1.1 this week.)
Building Character
Like any MMORPG expansion worth its salt, Dawntrail brings players a new playable race and two new classes. Female members of the Hrothgar, the leonine race first introduced as male-exclusive in Shadowbringers, are the new racial option.
More rare than males (by the lore, anyway), the female Hrothgar have a remarkable variety of character customization options, right down to tweaking fur patterns and shades. They can hail from either the Helion or Lost tribes as well, each with some slight, unique characteristics.
The bigger star of Dawntrail is its job classes. This time, both are DPS roles—the melee Viper, and the magic ranged Pictomancer—and I’m certain both will find devout followings once players process their skillsets.
The Viper, as demonstrated by the generic Warrior of Light in the Dawntrail trailer, uses twin swords that can be joined into a single, double-bladed weapon, just like Zidane in Final Fantasy IX—swift attacks for dual-wielding, heavier blows with the combined weapon. I immediately appreciated the way the Viper requires fewer commands on the hotbar, cycling through commands on the same spots.
A Viper has a couple of basic combos, starting with the single-target attacks Steel Fangs and Dread Fangs, and the multi-target Steel Maw and Dread Maw. The various steps of these chains inflict debuffs and buffs, which relate to their names; attacks with the word “Dread” in their name, for instance, increase the damage the Viper inflicts, while moves with the word “Swift” grant an attack speed buff.
When the class’ gauge is sufficiently charged by completing these combos, the Viper can use the Reawaken ability to call upon the strength of ancient Turali hunters—or in other words, a series of new combos. In short, Vipers want to unleash the basic combos at their disposal to charge the gauge, then unleash upgraded combos, and repeat.
It would prove a very newcomer-friendly class, if not for the fact that it will be gated behind a lot of content when Dawntrail arrives. I expected it to be easier to visually track which style of sword I was currently using, and for that to matter a little more, but nonetheless I think I may be using this class through the new Main Quests.
“Pictomancer is surely the more involved of Dawntrail‘s classes… a charming class that also brings a splash of character suiting the narrative moment.”
Dawntrail‘s other new class, the Pictomancer, is less straightforward but more charming. Inspired by Final Fantasy VI‘s Relm, this magical ranged DPS class is fascinating visually as they use aether to paint their imaginations to life.
Their core mechanic revolves around painting the stages of different Motifs, either a Creature, Weapon, or Landscape. If the Pictomancer completes all the stages/commands of drawing their chosen motif, its powers take full effect, either assaulting foes with a giant Moogle, battering them with a cartoonish hammer, or reducing casting time for the user’s spells for a limited time.
When not using the Motifs, Pictomancers have both single-target and AoE elemental combos, starting with “Fire in Red” and “Fire II In Red,” respectively. Completing these combos, as you may imagine, fills their Palette Gauge, which can in turn be spent to temporarily unlock a more powerful pair of combos. These ultimately culminate in either of the finishers, Holy in White or Comet in Black.
Pictomancer is surely the more involved of Dawntrail‘s classes; it was a lot to take in, given the preview build put characters at level 100. Given the proper introduction and learning curve, however, it’s a charming class that also brings Final Fantasy XIV a splash of character suiting the narrative moment.
Dawntrail will raise the level cap to 100, and given this milestone number, you might expect the game’s complexity to keep spiking. However, pre-existing classes will all receive some tweaks to help keep the balance, even as they get some new toys between levels 90 and 100.
After previewing the changes to my main class, Dark Knight, I found the action utility has been streamlined nicely, with Blood Weapon now upgrading into Delirium and combining their effects. It’s reassuring that Yoshida’s team has been making a concerted effort to maintain a certain degree of ease.
“Of course, we can always increase the number of actions available in a character’s skill set,” Yoshida said later in a media Q&A, “but if you have too many actions now, you’re going to have a very bloated button system and we won’t have enough to compensate for that. On the flip side, if you learn everything at a lower level, what happens in the mid- to higher-level tier? What are you going to learn from there?”
The Trail Ahead
One of the features which has helped elevate Final Fantasy XIV is its recent focus on making the vast majority of the game’s storyline playable single-player with the Trust system, offering computer-controlled allies for dungeons to avoid any issues arising from multiplayer, like long queues for some classes. Dawntrail isn’t abandoning this philosophy by any measure, but Yoshida says the team is turning its attention back to the multiplayer experience.
“We’re hoping that now we can encourage those people to play together, including those who have been enjoying by themselves, and go back to our roots as a massively multiplayer online game,” Yoshida said. “Now with Dawntrail, we are going to be focusing back on that sort of group content and the MMO aspect.”
Part of this initiative involves making the game’s events more rewarding. The team is aware players feel the loot given from big events like variant dungeons can feel lacking or paltry. Yoshida plans to alleviate this by not only handing out more items like minions, mounts, gear, and such—”We will be bringing content that feels a bit more different compared to some of the previous content that we’ve offered.”
Throughout Yoshida’s remarks, it was abundantly clear that he and his team are constantly checking the community’s pulse, consulting the players to help make Dawntrail and whatever comes after the best it can be.
As for what life after Dawntrail and the 7.x patch series looks like, Yoshida remains open-minded. After all, while the Hydaelyn & Zodiark Saga eventually became a sweeping epic, it was not conceived as a ten-year story arc.
In the era of A Realm Reborn, “we wanted to make sure that we could continue to exist,” he said. “Every day was just one step at a time. I don’t think we would have had the mind to go to the company saying, ‘oh, this is going to be one long saga that continues through Patch 6.0,’ or else the company would have been like, ‘are you crazy?'”
“In a similar fashion, we will probably sprinkle some foreshadowing that might lead to something throughout [patch] 7.0 and its story,” Yoshida teased. “We are starting a new chapter in our adventures and I want to see how players react once they get to the end of [Dawntrail], seeing the finale of that particular expansion and what kind of feedback we’ll receive from that.”
This attitude reflects the “summer vacation” vibe of Dawntrail, one which the game (and its players) could use after a literal battle against despair itself. A pure spirit of adventure permeates everything I’ve seen of the new expansion, and after the heavy stakes of the last few years in and out of the game, I’m eager to see what else Tural has to offer.
“We just want to continue bringing excitement to our players,” Yoshida said in his closing remarks. “We want new adventures for players to experience. And so rather than worrying about, ‘oh, is this going to be one long saga or not?’ I think we just want to go in there and enjoy, just explore the nooks and crannies.”
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail begins Early Access for qualified players on June 28, with its official release on July 2.
