FF14 Dawntrail Review | The Wildest Summer Vacation Fit For Heroes｜Game8 (2024)

Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion, Dawntrail, has finally arrived! The race is on to find the legendary City of Gold in Tural! Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.

FFXIV Dawntrail Review Overview

What is FFXIV Dawntrail?

FFXIV Dawntrail is the fifth expansion of the critically acclaimed MMORPG, which also marks the new beginning of the game’s overall story. Journey to the faraway continent of Tural, where new adventures, unexpected surprises, and gigantic discoveries await!

FFXIV Dawntrail features:.
　⚫︎　 Completely New Story Arc for the Historic MMO
　⚫︎　 Level Cap Raised to 100
　⚫︎　 New Playable Race - Female Hrothgar
　⚫︎　 New Playable Jobs - Viper and Pictomancer
　⚫︎　 New Cities, Towns, and Areas to Explore
　⚫︎　 New Dungeons, Raids, and Threats to Conquer and Defeat

For more gameplay details, read everything we know about FFXIV Dawntrail's gameplay and story.

FFXIV Dawntrail
Steam			Official SE Store
PlayStation			Xbox

FFXIV Dawntrail Pros & Cons

FFXIV Dawntrail Overall - 80/100

The new expansion, Dawntrail, improves on what many call the popular MMO’s weakness, which is its dated graphics. With the 7.0 graphical overhaul, the big focus on lighting is clearly noticeable, giving the character models more dimension. Other than that, the music still holds its own as the MMO’s main strength, with probably the boldest musical score the game has had to date. Other than that, the story is easily the most controversial part, as the worldbuilding in Tural makes it a slog to get through with a very disjointed and poorly paced narrative after its first half.

FFXIV Dawntrail Story - 6/10

The early parts of Dawntrail’s story are a very slow burn and pick up on its latter half. However, the pacing, development, and introduction of new characters are disjointed and jarring. The expansion uses the first half of the story to build on the continent of Tural, and the second half focuses more on setting up the next chapters of the whole Dawntrail patch cycle. The main characters involved in the Rite of Succession themselves could be categorized into common movie and anime tropes that aren’t really compelling. The worst offense that the story committed is how it decided to move on and introduce new details on a whim while expecting the player to be committed to each and every character, even if you’ve only known them for a few minutes.

FFXIV Dawntrail Gameplay - 9/10

The core gameplay of FFXIV remains the same but has small reworks across the board for all the combat jobs and the addition of two new DPS jobs in Viper and Pictomancer. Other than longtime players being thrown for yet another loop with the skills being rotated around again, the gameplay is still familiar and keeps its core identity. The most important part of the gameplay that impressed me is that the new 8-man trials and endgame dungeons were fun to learn and complete, to the point where I would say they’re the most fun I’ve had playing through the normal content that the game has ever had.

FFXIV Dawntrail Visuals - 9/10

The expansion’s biggest improvement is the game’s visuals, as it is very noticeable that the lighting has immensely improved. Even in lower settings, the changes are noticeable, especially in outdoor scenes where the positional lighting is prevalent and affects the different textures and character models. Another noticeable change is how the metallic textures and details were improved, as evidenced by the different accents in the armor pieces that are worn by the characters. Lastly, Dawntrail did a better job animating more of its action-packed scenes than the previous expansion, where they also toned down some of Endwalker’s super cliché use of certain animations.

FFXIV Dawntrail Audio - 9/10

The music of the expansion is some of the boldest music directions that the game has ever taken, from jazzy tunes to tribal tracks to even more futuristic tones in the expansion’s latter half. It could even be said that some of the music is similar to the tunes of Super Mario Odyssey in the game’s first hub city. In addition to the amazing music, the audio design of the game remains one of its strongest aspects. The only thing that anchors the game’s audio score for this expansion is the inconsistent voice acting, which is a shame because it really takes you out of intense scenes when the delivery is off.

FFXIV Dawntrail Value for Money - 7/10

For $39.99, the expansion is still quite expensive. Add the fact that the game is on a monthly subscription, and that would set you back an additional $15. The advantage that FFXIV has over other MMOs is that Square Enix is transparent about the amount of content that you’re getting, with the main parts of an expansion being fixed to a set amount of dungeons, 8-man raids, 24-man raids, etc., and other additional features being announced months prior to the expansion’s release.

FFXIV Dawntrail Review: Even Heroes Have Summer Vacations

As a longtime player of Final Fantasy XIV, dating back to the days before Heavensward was even released and having completed some of the game’s hardest fights, the wait for Dawntrail has been different than every other expansion. I still appreciate the game’s core design as a story-first MMO, but approaching the game from what can be considered a hardcore player’s point-of-view puts the game in a very different light. On one hand, Dawntrail has improved on the aspect that could be considered one of the game’s weaknesses, which is the overall visuals of the game, and continues to flex its sound design, story, and gameplay.

First off, let’s talk about the game’s massive upgrade to the visuals. As said earlier, I have been able to play the game in its early stages, and while there have been efforts to add more details to the different gear that players have access to, there has never been quite as drastic as this change. The graphics overhaul focused on the lighting, which is very noticeable in the metallic textures on the different armor pieces in the game.

Other noticeable changes are the weather effects, grass, foliage, anti-aliasing, and more. It’s something that you can tell easily when you’ve been exposed to how it was before for a long time. Lastly, on the visual front, the dev team has made better use of their knowledge of animating action sequences, as they’ve definitely flexed more of their animation prowess during the game’s climactic scenes.

Next, the audio. As usual, Masayoshi Soken continues to impress with his amazing musical scores, as you are immediately hit with funky and jazzy tunes when you first step foot in Tural. Voice acting and sound effects remain a strong aspect of the game’s sound design, with an emphasis on the former since they’ve started experimenting with VAs with different accents to showcase the region’s identity even more.

Where the music absolutely carries the game, the expansion’s English voice acting, in particular, has been a big miss. While it’s easy to pinpoint the main culprits of weak delivery and questionable emphasis, it was definitely a group effort. Even the game’s older and more seasoned voice actors had weird deliveries on their part, and some of their performances paled in comparison to their previous work.

With FFXIV being a story-first MMO game by design, they have created an identity for having a pretty good narrative that’s carried over through its inception. However, Dawntrail features a completely new story arc that explores more of Krile’s past and the drama surrounding the Rite of Succession of Tural’s Dawn Throne. It’s more of a "side quest" for the battle-hardened Warrior of Light, as this trip is a well-deserved vacation from saving the world a few times.

The story has made it clear that the Warrior of Light is not the expansion’s main character. It makes a parallel reference to the game’s second expansion, Stormblood, where you’re more of the main character’s right-hand person than the main driving force, despite being, quite literally, the biggest force of nature Eorzea has ever seen. To put it plainly, Wuk Lamat feels a lot like Lyse, especially with how they act and how they’re both characters who are willing to lead a nation to peace. The main difference is that the former has more focus on her development and actually tackles her weaknesses as the story progresses.

Most of the characters in the expansion are very "trope-y" and it does get pretty repetitive as they continue to shed light on each candidate’s strengths, except Wuk Lamat. The prime examples are the siblings who are competing for the throne as well, as they’re the textbook examples of the brooding strong type, the smart supportive type, and the "friends are my power" type of characters. To give you more context, Wuk Lamat is the representation of the empathy and peace-loving nature of Tural’s current ruler and her father, Gulool Ja Ja. It’s done enough times that you’ll get tired of the game constantly dunking on Wuk Lamat.

Moreover, the expansion does have a criminal amount of dialogue to read, hear, and think about, similar to Endwalker. It wasn’t a lie that the first half of the story is literally to educate the player on how Tural works, how the different cultures and tribes interact with each other, and how the current ruler kept the peace all these years. This is mirrored with you and your allies, as well as Wuk Lamat, since you are all unfamiliar with how Tural really is, especially since it also shows just how sheltered Wuk Lamat really is.

With the first half focused on worldbuilding the continent of Tural, the second half starts off strong but ends up falling flat due to the story’s poor pacing and inclination to introduce completely new details and characters out of the blue. At some point during the second half, they have already introduced the same number of core characters that you’re expected to sympathize with, but that kind of writing doesn’t necessarily fly, especially if the game functions like a visual novel for the majority of the story experience.

They could’ve introduced some of the latter half characters earlier during the game’s worldbuilding phase, and it would have been better than what was initially offered. The second arc of the expansion is completely jarring and has problematic pacing to boot. It could be equated to the aforementioned Stormblood, where you’re suddenly shipped to a completely different region entirely, but at a much later time. It also makes poor use of the developments that they cultivated in the first half of the story, as it seemed to be like they’re forgotten after the expansion’s rising action kicks into high gear.

Gameplay-wise, the game remains the same at its core, with small reworks and changes for the jobs across the board. As a Monk main myself, I was excited to try the new Viper class, as it seemed to take the speed of the Monk, the selfish rotation of the Samurai, and the flow of the Reaper. After reaching max level with Viper, I am still inclined to learn and play the class in the upcoming Savage Raids and, eventually, the expansion’s ultimate if I still decide to continue playing.

It’s worth noting that 7.0 Dawntrail’s trials and level 100 dungeons have been amazing so far. I have yet to finish the expansion’s first two EX trials; however, the normal versions have already been pretty interesting to play through during the game’s story quests. The first two optional level 100 dungeons have also been a breath of fresh air, with bosses that are actually threats and have you needing to actually pay attention to the fight.

It’s good that Yoshida-san made good on his promise to make more engaging fights for the first few endgame raids and dungeons for the expansion. Hopefully, they can continue this level of fight design for the rest of the patches to come, and most especially for both the upcoming Futures Rewritten Ultimate Raid and Arcadion Savage Raids.

One of the gripes I have with the expansion and FFXIV itself is that it has structured the story and gameplay in such a way that they don’t introduce a lot of action in the places themselves. You don’t really get a lot of actual gameplay when questing, as the story quests are a length visual novel for you to listen and read most of the time.

I have no doubt in my mind that Dawntrail is shaping up to be a great expansion, as it’s already starting off strong with the graphics updates, amazing music, and fun initial dungeons and raids. I welcome interested players to try out the game via the game’s free trial, as you could experience the best of FFXIV in Heavensward before diving headfirst into Dawntrail.

Pros of FFXIV Dawntrail

Graphical Improvements Are Noticeable

For a full year, Square Enix has advertised that the 7.0 update of Dawntrail will overhaul the game’s graphics. It’s good to see that they’ve delivered on this promise, as graphical improvements are noticeable from the jump. They’ve put a massive focus on the game’s lighting systems and how they affect the textures and character models, which is still noticeable even on lower-end systems. Additionally, the game now supports AMD FSR and NVIDIA DLSS upscaling to help the aforementioned systems get a considerable performance boost.

In addition to this, the game has also made strides in improving its animation game on the MMO’s many cutscenes. The expansion’s climactic sequences continue to flex their continuously improving craft, and it shows. They also even added quite a number of different animations on some of the more emotional and comedic scenes, which add to the spectacle.

Music and Audio Design are Still Amazing

The early areas of the expansion have an unexpected score that’s very similar to the music of Super Mario Odyssey. True to the reputation of the composer, Masayoshi Soken, the game’s music is still an amazing aspect of the game. With jazzy tunes, traditional compositions, and futuristic beats, Dawntrail might actually have the most diverse score out of the five expansions. I don’t think there has been a single dungeon or raid music that was disappointing this expansion, and if they can keep this up for the next two years with the coming patches, then we’re in for another certified Soken classic album full of bangers.

Actual Worldbuilding of Tural

Interestingly enough, Dawntrail does a good job of introducing Tural to the player. This comes from the concept that it’s mirroring you, the player, and your allies as people trying to learn Tural’s eventful history and diverse cultures. There’s a lot of dialogue and text to read, but it doesn’t overwhelm you, like in Endwalker, where you feel like you ONLY have to do the story since it feels weird to do something else while the world is ending.

It’s also important to keep in mind that Tural is a completely different continent, and with the amount of world building introduced in the first part of the expansion, there’s potential that we might be staying here quite longer than expected.

Amazing Initial Endgame Content

Contrary to the previous expansion, the first few endgame dungeons and boss fights that the expansion introduced have been a gigantic leap in terms of enjoyment and fun factor. The bar wasn’t very high to begin with, but it’s good that you actually have to pay attention to the bosses’ mechanics as opposed to before, where you could just survive an onslaught of hits because of healing and shields. The trials or 8-man party boss fights have also been a blast to learn and play through; even the normal versions of the story were interesting. If they can keep up this fight design for future content, then I think FFXIV players are in for a treat when it comes to the raids.

Cons of FFXIV Dawntrail

Monthly Sub MMO

Final Fantasy XIV has a monthly subscription similar to older MMOs like World of Warcraft, EVE Online, and the like. This means that you have to fork over $15 each month just to be able to continue playing. While newer players can play through the first two expansions of the game for free, which is already amazing in itself, the monthly subscription is a huge commitment, and only those who truly enjoyed the MMO gameplay or the story will find it worth paying for. Additionally, newer players will have to catch up on four expansions worth of story content before being able to access Dawntrail itself. Or you could purchase a story boost and a job level boost, which cost $25 each.

Expansion is a Slog

It goes without saying that there’s a lot of exposition and dialogue to get through. It’s a very slow burn, and those who aren’t interested in worldbuilding may find this annoying as it’s mostly fluff to the plot of the Rite of Succession. It’s been a trend for the recent expansions to feature a ton of cutscenes and dialogue that don’t really serve a lot of purpose for the overarching story. It functions similar to a visual novel, where you don’t really do anything but listen and read, which isn’t really making good use of the gameplay aspects that the MMO has. Honestly, they could cut some of the quests in order to feature more gameplay, as opposed to adding another cutscene that just involves them yapping most of the time.

Characters are Full of Tiring Tropes

One of the biggest sins of the main characters in the expansion is that most, if not all, are stereotypical characters in their whole identity and personality. Granted, some of them do change for the better. However, with the first half of the story being as slow as it is, it gets tiring to see them do what you expect them to. Though there are some surprising moments, it’s still not enough to shake their identity as stereotypical characters.

Pacing is Horrible

If the identity of stereotypical characters is one of the biggest sins in the expansion, then I would say the horrible pacing is the biggest sin of them all. As explained earlier, the expansion’s first half is more about explaining Tural as a whole, with an overarching story that’s not very compelling when you get down to it. The story of Dawntrail can be divided into two major arcs, and each feels very disconnected from the other.

Without going too much into spoilers, it feels like the development of the first half is thrown out the window when you get to its more climactic second half, where they start introducing new characters out of the blue. You’re expected to like, sympathize with, or, at the very least, get to know each and every character to a certain extent, but with the number of new players in the story, it all becomes a huge mess. Some events feel cheap and are included to evoke an emotion from you, and the identity of the expansion’s main characters feels scattered as there’s no real focus as to who it really is when it all starts to resolve itself.

Is FFXIV Dawntrail Worth It?

For Longtime Players, Absolutely!

For longtime players of the historic MMO, it could quite literally be the one expansion to bring them back due to the improvements they’ve made to the visuals. While the same players will also be quick to notice that, other than the additional stuff they’ve added, it’s still FFXIV to its core, the initial endgame content that 7.0 has is a very good sign that amazing fights and raids are coming.

In short, the expansion is absolutely worth it for longtime players of the MMO!

Dawntrail sticks to the tried-and-true formula of what a Final Fantasy XIV expansion offers and doubles down on certain aspects to make it more appealing than its predecessors. With more promised content on the way, the future is looking bright for XIV and the patches after 7.0.

Digital Storefront
Steam			Official SE Store
PlayStation			Xbox
$39.99

FFXIV Dawntrail FAQ

How do I redeem my actual registration code for FFXIV Dawntrail?

Log-in to your MogStation Account and input the code that you received from your order in the Expansions page. Please note that these will only be considered valid when the game officially releases on July 2nd till July 5th.

Where are the locations of the new jobs (Viper and Pictomancer) in FFXIV Dawntrail?

You must interact with these specific NPCs in the following locations:
　⚫︎　 Viper - Worried Weaver NPC in Ul'dah - Steps of Nald (X:9.3, Y:9.2).
　⚫︎　 Pictomancer - Cheerless Hearer NPC in Old Gridania (X:8.0, Y:10.3).
Please note that you must have a Disciple of War or Magic job that is at least level 80 to be able to undertake either quest.

You may also like...

	The First Descendant Gameplay and Story Info | Everything We Know So Far
	Eternal Strands Gameplay and Story Info | Everything We Know So Far
	SPY×ANYA: Operation Memories Review | It's Not Waku Waku
	Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review | DLC That Lives Up to the Hype
	Elden Ring Inspires FF14 and FF16 Teams as They Work on Two New Games

FFXIV Dawntrail Product Information

Title	FINAL FANTASY XIV: DAWNTRAIL
Release Date	July 2, 2024
Developer	Square Enix
Publisher	Square Enix
Supported Platforms	PC (Steam, Mac), PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Genre	MMORPG
Number of Players	99 Online Players
ESRB Rating	T
Official Website	FFXIV Dawntrail Website