Story
Let us be honest here. The story in Dawntrail is boring. It suffers from what Endwalker started: this weird idea that every expansion now has to be split into two at once, and instead of focusing on one strong narrative, it just dilutes itself across two competing directions. You are dragged through endless “dead civilisation” plots where the only way to progress is to relive someone else’s memories for the hundredth time. At this point, I could probably ghostwrite these story beats myself because it is always the same flavour of lost people, ancient ruin, and faded history with a sprinkle of “you must experience it personally”. Yawn.
The tragedy here is that Final Fantasy XIV used to thrive on pushing interesting, character-driven arcs. Dawntrail? It feels like filler episodes stitched together into an expansion. There is no sense of urgency, no reason to care, and worst of all, no spark.
Jobs
Every single job is boring. They all bow down to the almighty “two-minute meta” where you just hit your big buttons at the same choreographed time. Congratulations, your role in the raid is now reduced to whether you can press “burst now” without lagging. They “expanded” jobs by just throwing in an extra button or two after your finisher, which is about as exciting as upgrading your Netflix subscription to watch the same shows in 4K.
This should have been the place to refresh things, to give players variety, but instead the design philosophy has calcified into this rigid system where all classes feel interchangeable, and none of them stand out.
Dungeons
The dungeons are as bland as porridge left out overnight. Yes, some mechanics are mildly fun, but you are just going through the same motions. Pull, AoE, boss with three gimmicks, repeat. It is hard to get excited about content that feels like it was auto-generated by an AI trained on Shadowbringers’ mechanics.
Trials
The trials are… fine. Not awful, not groundbreaking, just there. They exist, you do them, you forget them. There is nothing truly iconic to shout about, nothing that makes you stop and go, “Yes, this is why I play XIV.” They are perfectly serviceable but completely forgettable.
Raids
The raids started fun, I will give them that, but they rely so heavily on body checks that the actual creativity feels drowned out. You are no longer engaging with cool mechanics or interesting bosses; you are playing “don’t be the idiot who wipes the group”. That might be fine occasionally, but when the whole raid tier leans on it, it is just exhausting.
Raids should feel like epic battles where skill and teamwork matter, not like some endless fitness test where one slip turns the whole fight into a time sink.
Music
Normally, this is the one area I can rely on XIV to absolutely crush it. Not this time. The music feels phoned in. Even the Final Fantasy IX throwbacks, which should have been an instant nostalgia win, are wasted. They are used more like cheap seasoning sprinkled on bland soup than as core themes that elevate the content. Maybe I am being overly negative, but for once, I did not find myself humming anything from Dawntrail after logging off. That is a massive red flag for a Final Fantasy game.
Social
The social side of the game is a ghost town. Outside of your Discord groups, the game itself feels dead. Towns are no longer buzzing hubs of activity, the world feels disconnected, and the once-strong community vibe has dissolved into little pockets of private servers and static groups. XIV used to feel alive, but now it is just quietly limping along, its social energy outsourced to third-party apps.
Overall
Dawntrail is a disappointment. It is bland, repetitive, and just plain dull in so many ways. From the uninspired story to the cookie-cutter job design, from the copy-paste dungeons to the nostalgia-fuelled but hollow soundtrack, the expansion feels like it is running on fumes. The social aspect is dead, the gameplay is tired, and what used to make XIV feel special has been buried under layers of mediocrity.
It is hard to stay excited when the best you can say about something is “well, at least it exists”.
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