After years of epic story, a restart with obstacles
With the expansion Endwalker, the story that has entwined around the players’ journey since A Realm Reborn (2013) came to a dramatic end in 2021, leading to the next journey and a new story arc with its following patches.
2024 began for the players of Final Fantasy XIV with Dawntrail and a lot of excitement. It was obvious that it would be difficult to reach the epicness and outstanding story of the last two expansions. Accordingly, disappointment set in quickly, as the beginning was – as expected – shallower and less epic.
The fact that the player’s character acted more as a side figure this time, supporting and accompanying the protagonist on her journey, didn’t sit well with the players, along with several other points. The protagonist herself also received criticism, mainly due to her voice actress. Players also criticized the shallow story and slow narrative pace.
Additionally, a type of quest that has always been rather annoying drove many players to frustration, as these were used a bit too frequently in Dawntrail (MeinMMO editor and MMORPG expert Karsten Scholz also noted this).
After 10 years of success, Final Fantasy XIV received mixed feedback from the community for the first time. However, this did not bother Naoki Yoshida and his team much, as they had anticipated similar feedback:
This being a game, it’s a form of entertainment, and you’ll always see some form of mixed response to entertainment. A second factor is that with Endwalker, we reached a big climax to a long-standing, spanning story. To a certain extent I had already predicted that we would have some sort of mixed response this time.
So If the question is whether I was shocked in a big way, the answer is no, not really.
Naoki Yoshida in an interview with PC Gamer, 27.08.2024
Moreover, Final Fantasy XIV benefits from this mixed feedback, as the authors can align the story of the upcoming patches with the criticism. This way, the planned innovations should be better, hence the hope of Yoshida that the ratings will stabilize again.
Also, regarding gameplay and content, the team would benefit from the criticism, as it had in the past.
This assumption seems to be coming true as with the patches the reviews are slowly but surely improving again. After the deep red start, the ratings on Steam are back to “Mixed” for Dawntrail (via Steam). This is especially due to patch 7.2, which brought one of the biggest content updates in MMORPG history and was well received by fans. What the future holds remains to be seen.
Many players are hopeful for the upcoming updates, while others have already given up on this expansion and are placing their hopes on the next one, which is expected to be released next year if the rhythm is maintained.
The team around producer Naoki Yoshida is ready for battle and invests a lot of energy and time to get the game back on track. After all, they have already succeeded once under far worse conditions.
And as Naoki Yoshida said in our interview: “It’s all thanks to our players supporting us – really, the greatest influence on the future development of FFXIV is our players.”
So according to him, it depends on you and your feedback what the future holds for you. Because community closeness still plays the biggest role for him and the development of Final Fantasy XIV.
While the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV continues on PC and consoles, a mobile spin-off is on the horizon. This is supposed to be a scaled-down version of the “big brother” and allow players to enjoy the MMO on the go. First impressions of the gameplay have already been shown: Spin-off of Final Fantasy XIV shows first job trailer, hints at further gameplay
