Dawntrail is a Fresh Start with Old Problems
Final Fantasy XIV is a long-running MMORPG that made big waves during the pandemic with its Endwalker expansion. It brought a 10 year saga to a close, and in its successor, Dawntrail, the next chapter begins. Despite its position as a fresh start, Dawntrail suffers from a familiar problem.
From a narrative perspective, Dawntrail fills a similar role to A Realm Reborn. ARR was the reboot of the original Final Fantasy XIV, and laid the worldbuilding groundwork for everything the game introduces later on. It was the start of a story arc called the "Hydaelyn and Zodiark Saga", which was told over the course of four expansions, released over the span of 10 years. Dawntrail is the first expansion after that arc.
Dawntrail takes places on the newly accessible continent of Tural, primarily inspired by Meso- and South American Cultures. As a completely new place in the world, and the beginning of a new story arc, it serves as something of a blank canvas, just like ARR did.
As such, Dawntrail must accomplish two things: First, it must establish Tural as a place in the pre-existing context of the game, while providing it with its own unique identity.
Second, it must lay foundations that can serve as the basis for another story arc in the game. The last arc ended up spanning ten years, told over four expansions - I doubt anyone knows how long this one will last. In my opinion, it does succeed in those tasks, overall - but I will discuss the content and plot of Dawntrail's story in another post (or, like, five).
The way in which Dawntrail tells its story on a technical level, however, is typical of FFXIV, and both its greatest strength and weakness.
Cut to the Chase? No, Cut to the Scene!
Something important to understand is that FFXIV is an RPG first, and an MMO second. If you've played other mainline Final Fantasy games, each of XIV's expansions plays like its own full-length RPG, with occasional multiplayer elements.
Players will spend a lot of time talking to people, and quest design is often rather rudimentary where gameplay is concerned: Go to a place, talk to someone, talk to someone else, grab an item from somewhere, go back to talk some more, maybe sit through a cutscene or two anywhere along the way. There's admittedly a lot of clicking and talking - some of it voiced, some not. This is because the star of the show is the story and its writing, and FFXIV is utterly uncompromising with that.
This means that the moment-to-moment gameplay is rarely exciting, and that new game features are gated behind progression in the story. Unless players are at the current maximum level and caught up to the story, they do not have access to all the game's content. Unlocking content as you go is not a new concept for an MMO, but in FFXIV, everything is locked behind progression in the story.
As a short point of comparison: If players level a character in World of Warcraft, they could enter whatever dungeon they want, as soon as they have the requisite level - earlier than that, even.
In XIV, access to dungeons is restricted by story progression, not level.
Essentially, there is a canonical point in the story at which player characters go through a certain dungeon, and players cannot access the dungeon before they are at the point in story where they are supposed enter it. In extreme cases, a player character could be dozens of levels above where they are in the story - but only have unlocked a fraction of the content theoretically available to them, simply because they haven't progressed the story far enough.
This isn't a problem for people playing through the story dutifully, but it is an issue for gameplay-minded people that would rather just play a dungeon or two with friends, than experience more story cutscenes. Players can, of course, do other things in the game, but if they are interested in dungeons or raids - the typical endgame activities of an MMO - really, anything meaningful that requires cooperation with other players? Then they will have to progress through the story at some point.
This is exemplified by A Realm Reborn. Some people find it tedious for how long it takes to develop its story and expand on the initially basic gameplay; and while there are story beats I'd personally shorten, the slow burn makes sure players understand the world they are in. That's the purpose of the base game: Establish the world players are going to experience for hundreds of hours to come.
By the end of its ARR content, the story has long since picked up steam, with political machinations and intrigue culminating in a 45 minute long cutscene, in which major plot points are resolved, and the foundations for the first expansion, Heavensward, are laid.
This sends a clear message: If a 45 minute story cutscene is the reward for completing the base game, its target audience are people who want a 45 minute cutscene as a reward; those who are invested in the story to such a degree that they look forward to (or dread) reading the infamous phrase:
"Several cutscenes will play in sequence. It is recommended you set aside sufficient time to view these scenes in their entirety."
Players not into this sort of thing likely didn't make it that far into the game in the first place.
This holds true in Dawntrail as well, where, during the first 3 hours of play, I had to fight enemies three times, for maybe 5 minutes total. The rest of my time was spent watching cutscenes, travelling, and talking with NPCs. That's just how XIV structures its story, and this is not for everyone.
This is, in fact, my own biggest gripe with FFXIV.
While the quality of the stories, and the combat gameplay in the endgame are good enough to make me overlook this, I would certainly prefer it if FFXIV made greater efforts to integrate its story into gameplay.
While I do understand that gameplay innovation in a target-based MMO is somewhat limited, the developers show that they can build great pieces of gameplay - they just don't do it often enough. Because of this, FFXIV's story feels at times more like a series of cutscenes than a video game. This is why several people I know did not stick with the game: They were very much gameplay first types of players - which is not the kind of game FFXIV is.
Given just how well this game can do combat when it tries, and how good the general quality of its worldbuilding and writing is, I feel like there should be a way to marry those two aspects into a truly fantastic whole. An incredible example of this, in my opinion, is the Endwalker Quest "In From the Cold", but even there, ironically, in a roughly 48 minute long quest, only about 15 minutes of gameplay go beyond clicking dialogue boxes - the rest is all cutscenes. It's just that the story told within these cutscenes is so gripping, and that the 15 minutes of gameplay players do get are some of the best I've ever seen in an MMO.
This works because the game sets these expectations very early on, so players who have stuck around this long are either used to it, or properly into this style. If it wasn't for the quality of the writing and direction in these scenes, the game would not be as successful as it is. The developers know this, and likely design for this target audience who enjoy this cutscene-heavy style of storytelling.
I realise that it's unrealistic to expect the game to change its fundamental approach to storytelling - nor would I want it to do so. I do think, however, there could be more for the player to actually do.
I don't know if more involved combat sequences in the Main Story Quest are going to solve this problem, or if it would even be realistic to expect them. I imagine more gameplay-forward design that maintains the quality of the story would be significantly more resource intensive for the dev team.
With all that said, FFXIV continues to appeal to a lot of people, including myself. I suppose it simply knows who it's designed for.
What do you think about FFXIV's mode of delivering story? Does it work for you? Do you wish it worked differently? Do you have ideas as to how the developers could integrate story and gameplay more thoroughly? Do let me know in the comment section!
Want more Dawntrail articles? Stay tuned for a detailed review of its story beats!
If you're curious about Final Fantasy XIV and come from a World of Warcraft background, Jesse Cox made an excellent comparison video.
