For the first time in 11 years, the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV is embarking on an entirely new era for its story arc. Dawntrail sets its sails for completely separate regions filled with cultures and histories never seen in the game’s long history–you can gather as much from the intro cinematic or the several Live Letters from director and producer Naoki Yoshida where he’s talked extensively about this new journey. I had the chance to play an early preview build of Dawntrail, and while there wasn’t any major story content, experiencing the land of Tural itself already told so many stories.
The development team at Creative Business Unit III is digging deep into Mesoamerican inspirations, drawing from cultures of pre-colonial Central and South America. It’s easily seen in the architecture of the buildings, the topography of Tural’s various zones, and the names for all the locations. In the same way Endwalker drew from Indian and South Asian culture to create the Thavnair region, Dawntrail’s rich, real-world influences are being reflected in nearly every aspect, and on a much larger scale.
I spent a lot of time walking the streets of Tuliyollal, the new main hub for Dawntrail. Going through the marketplace full of vendors, seeing the textiles and structures that make up the town, and watching the NPCs go through their animation sets, establishes a sense of place that has deep roots. It’s not so much pulling directly from those real-world inspirations, rather a blending of them with the development team’s own imagination to make something wholly unique for FFXIV, yet so familiar to those who know a bit about the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and Latin America. But this wouldn’t have happened without the help of several groups who had the insight to help craft Tural in all its detail.
I spoke to Yoshida about how the team approached creating Dawntrail, and he said, “We wanted to deliver to our players this area where there’s a diverse variety of values, people have different views of their politics, and are trying to come to a mutual understanding. We started researching more about the history behind the different cultures that exist in that [real-world] region, down to even the food and the history behind some of that food.” He further explained how it was a multi-team effort with their localization teams abroad and other branches of Square Enix to make sure that the ideas the Japan team had wouldn’t misrepresent the cultures it pulled from.
Yoshida continued, saying, “We went to an external company, making sure that we’re getting advice from them and input on what is appropriate and what could potentially be a risk. We made sure we were discussing and hashing things out to have an appropriate depiction of what we wanted to show in certain areas. So while it is all fantasy and fiction, we wanted to also make it seem very real at the same time, a very grounded world.”
He went on to explain how outside consultants advised on preliminary material which led to discussions of how certain things can be misinterpreted or potentially offensive. Yoshida said the team pushed to understand why it’d be the case in those particular instances, and instead of abandoning the initial idea entirely, they worked to develop a deeper understanding and deliver those ideas with better intent. “We do want to emphasize that we did our due diligence, not just internally, but then we also made sure to get proper feedback and advice,” Yoshida concluded.
While all of the groundwork is crucial for doing right by its direct influences and creating something that’s still authentic, it seems to be the crux of the main scenario questline. Yoshida mentioned here that having diversity in its region is necessary to tell its story about how different cultures and societies resolve their differences. And while that’s unfortunately about as much as he was willing to share, it’s also possible to pluck out a bit more about what’s going on in Dawntrail from the first dungeon available through MSQ, called Ihuykatumu.
If you run it through Duty Support, you’ll be able to take Alphinaud and Krile, and the newcomer Wuk Lamat who’s the female Hrothgar you see in the Dawntrail intro cinematic. The dungeon starts with them chasing someone down a river on a boat, then battling through jungles, caves, and ruins. However, the twist here is Urianger and Thancred are in this dungeon as well, as NPCs who obstruct your path through the dungeon, as if to antagonize you. We know there is some sort of bigger competition going on in the story based on previous Live Letters, alluding to what we’d call a “tournament arc” in the anime world.
As for the dungeon from a gameplay perspective, it’s fairly standard stuff for FFXIV–you fight a couple mobs of enemies, fight a boss, and do that two more times. But main dungeons in FFXIV were never really about breaking from that formula; it’s instead about the spectacle and their function as a storytelling device. That’s not to say there aren’t some fun boss fights, however, firing off waves of area-of-effect attacks you need to dodge while keeping uptime with your attack rotation. Ihuykatumu provided a decent challenge, but it was also a great opportunity to try out the new Jobs–Pictomancer and Viper–in a full gameplay scenario.
Pictomancer has got to be the most unserious Job in FFXIV, and I’m absolutely digging it.
I must say Pictomancer is my favorite of the two, and that’s due to its imaginative design and mobility as a magic DPS. To distill it down to the basics, Pictomancers queue up their big attacks by drawing one of the three painting types, which are shown on the Canvas gauge. There’s the Weapon Motif, Creature Motif, and Landscape Motif, each of which is summoned separately, and then used to execute attacks. Using these paintings’ attacks feed into Depiction, which lets you then access bigger attacks based on the combination of paintings you’ve used. Pictomancer also has a series of standard casts called Aetherhue that fill the gaps during painting cooldowns, but they also feed into the Palette Gauge and swapping painting colors gives you access to different spells–not too dissimilar to how Red Mage swaps magic types. It reminds me a bit of the old Summoner of pre-Endwalker FFXIV as well, but it has such a natural flow that makes its attack rotation so much fun to churn through.
Pictomancer has got to be the most unserious Job in FFXIV, and I’m absolutely digging it. There’s something satisfying about the thwack of the three-part hammer attacks via the Weapon Motif and the big damage numbers flying out while frantically running across the combat arena. But I also enjoy the balance between juggling its various mechanics while keeping a sharp eye on your cooldowns. It can be a lot to wrap your head around because of how different Pictomancer presents itself, but so long as you take the time to understand its intricacies, it’ll all make perfect sense in battle.
From everything I’ve gathered, Dawntrail will be hitting another theme that’s close to home: venturing into new beginnings, but never forgetting where you came from.
In my conversation with Yoshida, he also waxed philosophical about the development team’s journey creating new Jobs and reworking old ones throughout the years. The prevailing idea was about the individuality of each Job, and wanting to avoid a homogeneous gameplay flow between them. Viper is designed in a way that has multiple single-button actions that change throughout its rotation, but features branching paths within that attack rotation that you’ll want to prioritize based on the combat situation or what kind of buff or meter you’re working toward. So, I asked if this particular design is indicative of where FFXIV is going with future Jobs and reworks of existing ones. And Yoshida replied, “[With regards to] about how the Viper and Pictomancer are set up, that’s the individuality of those jobs.”
When it comes to keeping combat interesting and challenging in the future, it’s not so much about making Jobs more complicated or easier to use; rather, it’ll come from the fight design. Yoshida told me, “For Dawntrail 7.0 and the 7.x patch series, our goal in terms of a fulfilling player experience, we want to focus in on the mechanics and the uniqueness of some of these encounters.” As someone who regularly sinks time into endgame content and progressing the toughest raid bosses in FFXIV, I have high expectations based on what Yoshida has said and what we’ve seen in pre-release presentations.
At the end of the day, I came away from playing Dawntrail with my passion for FFXIV reinvigorated. I’ve been so wrapped up in Savage raiding and it almost feels like a lifetime ago when I was in a puddle of tears finishing Endwalker back in 2021. At times, it’s been as if I forgot why I fell in love with FFXIV in the first place. So, stepping out into Tural for the first time, I was reminded that FFXIV has still got it and that there’s so much more left in the tank for the critically acclaimed MMORPG. And that’s just what’s on the surface, because as Yoshida has said, they just can’t say anything about the deeper story, and from what we’ve seen about the futuristic city of Solution Nine and secret technology buried underneath Tural, I’m also reminded that FFXIV is all about the wild twists and turns along the way.
FFXIV has resonated with me so much over the years for how it always made me reflect on my own life, whether that be about friendships, fighting for something greater, or confronting mortality with a brave face. One of my favorite pieces I wrote for GameSpot was on Shadowbringers and patch 5.3’s story, and just how much I love G’raha Tia and the characters who embody such powerful narrative themes–now here he is eating tacos in the streets of Tuliyollal. And so, from everything I’ve gathered, Dawntrail will be hitting another theme that’s close to home: venturing into new beginnings, but never forgetting where you came from.
FFXIV: Dawntrail starts with its early-access period on June 28 for those who preorder the expansion, and goes live for everyone else on July 2, and it will be available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
This article is based on play of an in-development build of FFXIV: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.