Square Enix has successfully invested enormous amounts of energy, time, and money over the past 14 years to turn the mixed launch version of Final Fantasy XIV into one of the best MMORPGs on the market. Now, for the first time, there is sustainable backlash from the community.
Why did Square Enix have to struggle? When Final Fantasy XIV was released in its original version on September 30, 2010, fans of the iconic role-playing franchise were met with a mixed, unfinished MMORPG that had numerous issues and shortcomings.
The people responsible at Square Enix were obviously afraid that the harsh criticism could permanently damage the Final Fantasy brand due to the dire state of the online role-playing game. So they decided on unprecedented measures:
- The MMORPG was taken offline to receive a complete overhaul under the new leadership of Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida – including a new engine, optimized server structures, and an adjusted storyline.
- In August 2013, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was launched, which still had its quirks but represented a significant improvement across the board compared to the first version.
- With enormous amounts of energy and effort, the team around Yoshida built on this new foundation over the following years, with content updates and expansions that were so packed with content that at times even the big competitor WoW looked outdated.
The enormous risk that Square Enix took with the restart paid off. While most other online role-playing games complained about declining player numbers or had to endure poor expansions, Final Fantasy XIV became better and more popular with each addon.
This way, it was able to establish itself among the best representatives of the genre and relied on a payment model with mandatory subscriptions all these years. Moreover, the writers managed to conclude a story arc that was built over ten years in a way that was appreciated by a large part of the community with Shadowlands and Endwalker. For many fans, that was “Peak Final Fantasy XIV.”
With Dawntrail, a new chapter begins for Final Fantasy XIV:
A slip-up or the beginning of a downward trend?
What is happening with Dawntrail? With the current expansion, the launch marked the beginning of a completely new story chapter, and the first steps were already rocky. There was criticism of the story, of a main character, of the rather passive role of the player characters, and of the design of certain quests.
While the mixed feedback did not bother the responsible director Naoki Yoshida, he expressed his dismay over the partly personal attacks after the launch of Dawntrail. He also stated that with Patch 7.1, they wanted to improve some aspects that had been brought to the developers’ attention through player feedback.
What is the current status of FFXIV? The major content patch 7.1 has since been released. So has the follow-up with Patch 7.11 and the Fatal Raid “A Second Future (Fatal)”. Additionally, on December 17, 2024, the official patch notes for 7.15 were recently released via finalfantasyxiv.com. Nevertheless, Dawntrail remains in the critics’ line of fire.
On the product page of the expansion on Steam, the MMORPG from Square Enix has received a “Mostly Negative” rating for the first time. Only 32 percent of the reviews from the past 30 days were positive. For the entire duration, Dawntrail stands at “Mixed,” with 54 percent positive reviews. For comparison:
- Shadowbringers is rated “Very Positive,” with 86 percent positive reviews (via Steam).
- Endwalker is rated “Very Positive,” with 82 percent positive reviews (via Steam).
Criticism in the negative reviews of Dawntrail continues to focus mainly on the story, but also the slow pace of updates, the lack of endgame content, the excessive simplification of classes, and the lack of activities that feel fresh and new.
What does the community say about it? It’s clear that this critical examination of Dawntrail is also being discussed on community platforms.
- Furia_BD writes on Reddit: “As much as I respect Yoshi P, and no one can deny that he saved the game, he is obviously too afraid to change the game formula, even after 10 years, so maybe it’s time for someone else to take the helm.”
- Xerlot11 is not surprised by the criticism (via Reddit): “The game really needs something big to shake things up. I think most people are feeling burnout. Especially since most have caught up on the major backlog of content, which was a common defense for the last expansion Endwalker being content-less.”
- Slim_Neb_27 writes on Reddit: “I’ve been playing since 4.0 and quit the game once I finished the content from the Dawntrail launch. So much potential is being held back by the terrible net code and engine limitations, and every bit of progress at this point feels like a damp band-aid.”
- Rogalicus admits on Reddit: “I’m not sure if I feel justified because I’ve been complaining about it since Shadowbringers while people acted like it was the best MMO of all time. Literally nothing has changed since then, other than two minutes of meta, a bad X.0 story, and slower patches.”
How does MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz evaluate this? Final Fantasy XIV has been an MMORPG that has captivated players primarily with its story and world since the A Realm Reborn restart, along with a multitude of different content. However, there has always been room for improvement, especially in quest design or the old-school combat experience.
As long as the strengths are really strong, people tend to nod at and tolerate the weaknesses. However, with Dawntrail, Final Fantasy XIV has now lost some of these strengths, making the longstanding weaknesses more pronounced.
In my view, Naoki Yoshida’s focus is no longer solely on Final Fantasy XIV. Initially, he was basically overseeing the team for Final Fantasy XVI on the side, and now the MMORPG is also getting a mobile spin-off. Such additional projects naturally divert the focus that Square Enix had maintained for many years after A Realm Reborn. Speaking of mobile: The spin-off of Final Fantasy XIV shows its first job trailer, hinting at further gameplay
