This weekend, the Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival kicked off, bringing about fifteen thousand fans to Las Vegas to get the latest news, hang out with fellow fans, and do stuff (like wait in lines). The initial keynote, given by director and lead producer Naoki Yoshida, was the most emphasized event of the weekend, and literally nothing else opened up until it was wrapped up—so fans knew they were in for something, mostly likely a new expansion. And it was!
Dawntrail will be the next new chapter in the historic MMORPG. FFXIV’s developers have been stressing the imminent arrival of this new expansion and, with it, plenty of stuff to look forward to, from quality of life improvements to… frankly, just about anything else that comes with a new expansion. But there was a lot to take in, so what is it that’s got players excited for the summer 2023 release?
Here are some of the biggest highlights of the keynote.
New Story In The New World (FF6 Edition)
You know the drill by now. Warrior of Light is whisked off somewhere; it’s new and cool, and we meet new people. There’s a larger evil, some cool people, and we gotta eventually fight.
This time, it seems we’re going to some… weird mixed-culture conglomerate place? …to take part in rulership lineage trials and look into the City of Gold, so you can guess what regional influences are being pulled from here. (Woah, so unexpected and entirely not tired.) It’s really unclear what exactly is being channeled in the trailer and initial world information because while there are clear and obvious native Central American influences, a screenshot showed a very, very obviously “Polynesia”-inspired building.
And during a press-exclusive Q&A, Yoshida said we would have to wait for more information about the expansion before he went fully into details. So that’s that.
We do have at least a few hints that this will draw influence from Final Fantasy 6, though: Valigarmanda will be making an appearance as a trial, and the Pelupelu will make an appearance as one of the “tribes.” Between this and the FF4 influences in Endwalker and the current patch cycle, it’s an exciting time to be an old-fashioned Final Fan-tasy. Ha.
Final Fantasy 14 on Xbox Series X and S
One of the biggest widespread asks for FFXIV is finally happening. Yoshida brought out Phil Spencer during the keynote to announce FFXIV for the Xbox Series X and S, which will have an open beta later in the 5.X patch cycle and a full release next spring.
While I couldn’t tell you exactly who asked for this, it’s a big deal for nearly everyone paying attention to gaming. FFXIV is one of the few MMORPGs that’s console-friendly to boot, as it started off with Playstation 3 compatibility and hosts a breadth of console-specific adaptations to make gameplay smooth. Hopefully, at least, this means the transition and introduction go well for Xbox players.
There’s also been the big concern that for basically forever and a half, the Final Fantasy franchise has found some preference in Playstation-exclusive releases. Now, maybe—maybe, this is a giant gesture of goodwill to accelerate a potential merger with Microsoft? But, well, gift horses and mouths and all, I guess.
Graphical Update
Announced not long after Endwalker’s initial hype settled down, the graphical update is meant to bring the game a little more into the modern age. However, the team emphasized that they don’t want to make characters and settings the like look so drastically different that they’re unrecognizable (especially your own).
They seem to have gotten the job done a bit. No longer do they look like paper cut-outs, especially in comparison to the new versions or, say, third-party mods – but those modders will likely be in business for a hot minute. Still, it takes the game out of 2013 and into… more like 2015. That’s something.
More importantly, apparently to certain parts of the team is the foliage around the world. Which, to be fair, seems to be pretty properly earned. Already-stunning grasslands and fields of flowers are getting a huge aesthetic boost thanks to the update, with the grass and flowers feeling more lush than before. And thankfully, this’ll be an automatic update throughout the game, so nothing should be delayed.
Everything comes at a cost, though, including that beautiful graphical update. If you’re playing on a PC, the requirements have been upped a little bit.
We’ve put together the comparisons, plus the new system requirements, for you to easily check out.
Two New DPS Classes
Bring a little bit of popcorn to your DPS duty queues – we are, in fact, getting new DPS classes in Dawntrail.
We didn’t get much directly besides a few key facts: we are getting two, they’re respectively a a melee and a caster, and also Yoshi-P’s fantastic shirt of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles unveiled at an extremely specific time:
However, it’s easy to speculate what’s going on based on the trailer alone. We do see our default Meteor of Light, officially dubbed “Meteor,” swinging a sword around that’s far slimmer than our usual Paladin fare. Some believe it’ll be a Pictomancer based on the heavy Final Fantasy 6 lore that’s also been presented, but Corsair seems to be on the table as well. Or it could be something new? Who knows?
Raid Strategy Board with Collaborative Editor
One of the biggest obstacles (and memes) for FFXIV high-end players has been getting everyone on the same page regarding raid strategies. Mostly, we don’t really get to have large-scale maps and icons that help raiders build diagrams, which is prohibitive to strategy-building because, let’s be real, not everyone is artistically inclined.
Dawntrail changes this game—literally. The Strategy Board allows players to tap into the visuals and maps of duties in order to convey these oft-difficult concepts. Sadly, this means we may not get such memes as the “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson” or “Elmo” strats that come from the ingenuity of the FFXIV community. Clarity is more important when it comes to getting the clear, though, so the small reduction in memes may be a worthy sacrifice.
And yes, this is a top update because I’m a raider who had to rely on scrappy screenshots by raiders of ages past to clear some stuff, such as Gaols. I’m biased, but I have my needs.
Oh, and surely this will only be used for legitimate purposes and nothing goofy at all. Why would anyone use visual tools for silly goose purposes in FFXIV?
Gear Updates: Dyes and Glasses
Two dyes! Glasses! They say the real endgame of FFXIV is glamour, and it shows the best in the hype for these specific glamour updates.
In respect to the dyes, coloring has been a huge issue for a lot of gear in FFXIV. A lot of gear’s dyeing options change the primary color of many fabrics, but leave a lot of undertones and secondary highlights and objects the same color.
For instance, the Myths of the Realms alliance raid series has a lot of dresses with unchanging blue crystal parts, which doesn’t look great if you want to use, say, some mossy green or magenta pink on your dress. It seems the dyes will allow you to change these undertones as well, adding an incredible breadth of options for glamorous.
Glasses are also getting their own visual slot! They won’t count as an item in the armory chest, nor towards item levels, so now you actually get to wear glasses and a hat, because your baseball cap won’t fix your Warrior of Light’s nearsightedness.
Not Blitzball
It seems Yoshi-P wants you to please stop asking.
