In Final Fantasy XIV, the new type of dungeons that brings variety to the game was introduced with Patch 6.25. They succeeded so well that MeinMMO editor Irina Moritz couldn’t stop playing it.
Let’s be honest: Lack of sleep somehow goes hand in hand with gaming. Sometimes a game comes out that you are super excited about, and you lose track of time. Other times, you just have so much fun with friends that you don’t want to log out, even when it’s really quite late.
As an adult and responsible person (haha), I have given up this vice. During the week, the PC or console turns off at 10:00 PM sharp. This has actually lasted for a long time (with 1-2 exceptions).
What I didn’t expect was that the new Unstete Dungeon in FFXIV would draw me in so hard that I would completely break my own rule.
“Oh, just one more try”
In itself, the new dungeon is nothing that blows you away. You start in a room and can choose between 3 different paths. Each of these paths has 4 different endings that you can reach, so a total of 12.
Which ending you reach depends on the choices you make during the dungeon:
- Which bridge should be activated?
- Which item do you pick up?
- What answer do you give to a question?
There are also smaller puzzles you have to solve to unlock secret endings. The runs can be comfortably done alone in normal mode. The higher difficulties require coordinated groups and a lot of teamwork and skill, especially in Savage mode.
What makes it special: Even though I enjoy raids and challenging content, I initially skipped the higher difficulties of the dungeon. Because I was mainly captivated by the search for different endings.
It was a blast working through the individual paths and figuring out how they work. The game provides hints in the form of texts, objects in the dungeon, and dialogues with the companion NPC, so we started taking notes as a group and writing down which options we had already tried.
We already felt like “just like in the old days when there were no guides”. But that ended up getting me into trouble, and I nearly slept through my alarm today.
Since the runs in the dungeon never take more than 30 minutes, it constantly tempted me to say: “Oh, just one more try”. It didn’t help either when my group eventually disbanded (because people had to go to bed), since the dungeon can also be smoothly completed alone.
So I quickly switched to my warrior and continued solo. One run turned into another, then another, and maybe another to unlock the last ending in the second path. Until the clock eventually showed me a totally ungodly hour.
Enjoyers travel alone or with friends
If you plan to visit the Unstete Dungeon and want to have some fun there, I would recommend going alone or with friends. In groups with random players, it quickly happens that the solutions for the different paths get spoiled.
I found it more fun to puzzle over the options and riddles myself to find the different endings. If you get stuck at a point, you can look for tips (we did too). But I would definitely recommend approaching the dungeon blind.
Of course, not everything is perfect. As it is the first content of its kind, a lot of it still feels very “basic”. For the future, I would wish for trickier puzzles that should also be more logical. With some of them, I wondered how people figured them out, as it seemed so random.
The rewards could also be better and more varied. From what I’ve gathered, they are rather modest, especially at higher difficulty levels. There are only a handful of cosmetic items and materia for the hardest mode.
But these are all things for the future. The content is definitely a step in the right direction, and I would love to see more of it in upcoming patches.
Now I also know how nasty this “One more run” trap is. Next time I should hopefully have a bit more sleep.
Have you tried the new content yet? What were your experiences with it? Do you like it or not? Write it in the comments.
More about Patch 6.25 can be found here:
Final Fantasy XIV Patch Notes 6.25: Hildibrand and Unstete Vault are coming today
