The latest expansion of Final Fantasy XIV is making quite a splash in the MMORPG community. How is Shadowbringers performing on Metacritic and what do other media outlets say about it?
Two weeks have passed since the release of the new FFXIV expansion. During this time, a very clear opinion about Shadowbringers has emerged in the reviews.
Here are the Metacritic ratings for Shadowbringers: On Metacritic, both players and the press reacted very positively to the new expansion:
- Player ratings: 9.2/10 from 319 reviews
- Press ratings: 92/100 from 14 reviews
With a score of 92 points, Shadowbringers is the first Final Fantasy game to receive a rating of 90+ points in the last 14 years.
Compared to past expansions, the MMORPG has steadily improved over time:
- “A Realm Reborn” reboot received a score of 83
- “Heavensward” expansion scored 86
- And “Stormblood” slightly above with 87
Here’s what gaming media are saying about Shadowbringers: The new expansion from FFXIV is also well received among gaming journalists. The ratings from other media outlets are as follows:
- IGN – 9.5/10
- PCWorld – 4.5/5 stars
- Gamespot – 9/10
- Destructoid – 9.5/10
- MMORPG.com – 8.6/10
- Daily Star – 5/5 stars
- Screenrant – 5/5 stars
- The Gamemachine – 8.6/10
- JeuxVideo – 18/20 points (User rating 18.2/20)
Many outlets praise the game’s story and soundtrack in their reviews. Critics uniformly agree that the quality of Shadowbringers’ story should be aspired to by every major MMORPG. Some even place it on par with the best Final Fantasy games in the series. For example, CGMagazine writes:
Shadowbringers is more than just a masterful storyline in a beloved tale. It is one of the best Final Fantasy stories ever made. It showcases an MMORPG at its peak.
Our author Irie was also impressed by the story of the expansion.
Here’s how it looks on Steam: After the expansion’s launch, FFXIV has experienced a strong increase in active players on Steam, which has remained stable since then.
The newest reviews of the game and the expansion are overall rated as “very positive” on Steam. Over 2000 new reviews have been submitted since the launch of the expansion on July 2, and a large majority of them expressed positive feedback towards the MMORPG.
It is hard to gauge how the player numbers for Final Fantasy XIV actually look after the expansion’s launch, as Square Enix has not released them. However, it can be assumed that the MMORPG will gain many new players due to the current flood of good reviews and reactions.
