The latest expansion for Final Fantasy XIV has just been launched and has set sail for Tural. At launch, however, the add-on has only received mixed reviews on Steam. Many players see parallels to the weak Stormblood.
What is Dawntrail? Dawntrail is the fifth expansion for the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. After the last expansion, Endwalker, brought the story that began over ten years ago with the original version of the game to an end, a new story arc is now set to begin.
The add-on already brings many new features at release. You can read what exactly here:
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Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail: Everything about the release, Collector’s Edition and benchmark
by Alexander Leitsch
In Dawntrail, the Warrior of Light and his friends find themselves in Tural, a new continent inspired by South America. There, the current ruler is looking for a successor. A candidate recruits you to support her in her attempt to take over.
The story is teased in the launch trailer:
Final Fantasy XIV: Launch trailer for Dawntrail sets the mood for the adventure in Tural
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Only moderate feedback on Steam – This is what it looks like for Dawntrail
What do the reviews on Steam look like? At the time of the news, Dawntrail as a standalone listing on Steam has a rating of Balanced. This is calculated from a total of 1,423 reviews. Of these, 913 are positive, but also 510 are negative.
How meaningful are the reviews? Steam is just one of several platforms where Final Fantasy XIV can be played, but it is the only way to get somewhat reliable player counts, as Square Enix does not release official player counts via their own launcher on PC and Mac, and Playstation and Xbox numbers are also unknown.
At the start of the game’s Early Access, the number of players jumped from around 15,000 on average per day to over 91,000. The all-time peak was reached in 2021 with the release of the previous expansion, Endwalker, and is 95,102 according to Steam Charts.
The reviews were written by less than 2% of the gamers playing at the expansion’s peak via Steam only.
No longer the protagonist, but an overpowering babysitter
What do the players criticize? Many criticize the expansion’s story. Since it cannot be skipped, it makes up a large part of the early game and leveling experience. Opinions are divided especially when it comes to the new NPC Wuk Lamat.
Reviewer HuiMoin writes: Whether you like this expansion depends entirely on whether you like Wuk Lamat or not. You are no longer the protagonist, but an overpowered babysitter.
Others like Vivi Ornitier are annoyed by the many running quests: […] I’m almost level 93 and spend hours doing running quests and since nothing exciting is happening, I watch videos on my second screen.
Parallels are often drawn to the second expansion, Stormblood, which received similarly mixed feedback from players. But in Stormblood, too, the player character was in a more supporting role, helping the character Lyse to liberate her homeland, Ala Mhigo.
Under a reddit post, JustiniZHere writes: […] I understand that this kind of storytelling [wie in Dawntrail] works well for some, but for me it’s a total failure. This reminds me of all the things I hated about Stormblood, they didn’t learn anything.
Wuk Lamat, as she appears in the CGI trailer. Her cheerful, extroverted and naive nature divides the community.
Is there also positive feedback? The 913 positive reviews also include praise for Dawntrail. Steam user Cabbage, for example, writes that the story is rather weak, as in Stormblood, but the bosses and battles appear in a more positive light.
In the review by user Ark, patience is required for the story and the dungeons, graphics, music and balancing are highly praised. In another review, by Steam user HollyBlueAgate, it is also explicitly pointed out that the slow story and the focus on Wuk Lamat were announced and to be expected. Here, too, the new trials and dungeons are praised.
On reddit, Greyven draws the following conclusion: The story lives and dies on whether you like Wuk Lamat, because of her extreme presence in the story. You love her? Great expansion for you. You hate her? Terrible expansion because she’s ever-present.
There is also feedback on X.com (formerly Twitter). Much of it is actually positive:
Final Fantasy XIV: These are the 2 new jobs in Dawntrail – Pictomancer and Viper in under 2 minutes
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Is Dawntrail really that difficult? An assessment
I played Dawntrail up to the level 95 dungeon. In fact, Reddit user Greyven hits the nail on the head with his comment:
The obligatory main story of Dawntrail is extremely cutscene-heavy. Also, for the first time since Stormblood, your own character is no longer the main focus. The main character is Wuk Lamat.
For this very reason, your own feelings towards her play a big role in your evaluation. If you like Wuk Lamat as a character, you will be more likely to forgive the main story for its weaknesses and look forward to the adventures with her. If you don’t like her, you will be incredibly frustrated and annoyed with the quests.
Since we players have always been the key characters in Final Fantasy XIV, the shifted focus now takes some getting used to.
However, the criticism primarily relates to the story and Final Fantasy XIV is more than that: Overall, there is also a lot of praise for the new dungeons and trials as well as the graphics update. The quality of life changes are also well received.
However, because the story is so omnipresent, its quality, which may not meet all expectations, has a more negative impact on the feedback than it actually does.
I myself have thrown myself into the Early Access and written a report on my experiences so far. I won’t go into the story in more detail for spoiler reasons, but I’ll admit: I also had to warm up to Wuk Lamat first. You can read it here: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail shows that the MMORPG is becoming more and more of a single player game