Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is the fifth expansion pack to Final Fantasy XIV, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. It was released on July 2, 2024, over two years after Endwalker, the previous expansion. Like its predecessors, Naoki Yoshida served as director and producer and Masayoshi Soken composed the soundtrack. The expansion pack will be released as a standalone product for current players; for new players, the "Complete Edition" that originally launched with Heavensward was updated to include all expansions including Dawntrail.

In Dawntrail, players travel to Tural, a continent across the sea, to participate in a rite of succession to determine the next leader of Tuliyollal. They will serve as champion for Wuk Lamat, one of the current leader's children. They are joined by allies from Eorzea who support different candidates. After the climactic events of Endwalker, Dawntrail was designed as a "summer vacation" for the player's character, the Warrior of Light. In addition to adding new areas, the expansion pack increased the level cap, debuted two character classes and a new playable race, and initiated the game's first major graphical overhaul since its relaunch in 2013.

At launch, Dawntrail received generally positive reviews, though it was notably not as well received as it's widely acclaimed previous expansions, Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Dawntrail largely matches that of the base game. Players interact with each other in a persistent world that responds to their actions. The two new jobs in Dawntrail are Viper, a dextrous dual-wielding swordsmaster, and Pictomancer, a paint-based mage. Viper is inspired by other agile swordsmen in the Final Fantasy series, such as Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. Vipers can combine their two swords into a stronger two-handed weapon for certain attacks. Pictomancers brush their magical paint directly into the air, casting both damaging and supportive spells for the party. It is based on Relm Arrowny's magic in Final Fantasy VI. Krile, a fan-favorite character, changes her class to Pictomancer in this expansion. Director Yoshida stated that the more recently designed classes, including Viper and Pictomancer, feel "more complete" compared to ones introduced in earlier expansions. Additionally, Beastmaster will be added as a "Limited" job, with the same restrictions on player matchmaking as Blue Mage.

Setting and characters
Dawntrail takes place on Tural, a continent across the sea far to the west. Tural is inspired by Latin America and Southeast Asia. Yok Tural, the southern half of the continent, includes the capital of Tuliyollal, a coastal city inspired by Mexico City, and Urqopacha, a mountainous region reminiscent of the Andes with Peruvian and Incan architecture. Kozama'uka is an Amazon rainforest-like region, homeland of the birdlike Hanuhanu. Yak T'el is a cenote-covered jungle resembling the Yucatán Peninsula, the southern portion of which is a meteor-bombarded forest featuring the Mamool Ja homeland of Mamook. Xak Tural in the north contains Shaaloani, which is similar to the "Wild West" of America. A new Field Operations area called Shades' Triangle derives from the Bermuda Triangle.

The nation of Tuliyollal is a multi-ethnic federated monarchy led by Gulool Ja Ja, a two-headed Mamool Ja who united the continent under one banner during an epic journey eighty years ago. Two-headed members of his species possess fearsome strength and potent magical abilities. He and his legendary companions traveled across Tural, forging alliances, quelling conflict between warring peoples, and even sealed away the flying calamity known as Valigarmanda. As Dawnservant, his reign has been characterized by an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity. Shortly before the events of Dawntrail, Gulool Ja Ja announced a contest to determine the next ruler of the nation. Three of the candidates are his children: Zoraal Ja, his one-headed biological son known as the 'miracle' due to the belief that two-head Mamool Ja are sterile; Koana, his adopted son who studied abroad in Old Sharlayan to bring their technologies back to Tural; and Wuk Lamat, his adopted daughter who is earnest and headstrong but sheltered. Whereas both Koana and Wuk Lamat hope to maintain the peace that Gulool Ja Ja established, Zoraal Ja has ambitions to conquer and colonize the rest of the world, motivated by his inferiority complex with respect to his father's accomplishments. The last candidate is Bakool Ja Ja, another two-headed Mamool Ja from their homeland of Mamook who aims to institute Mamool Ja supremacy in Tuliyollal. Wuk Lamat journeys to Old Sharlayan to recruit the player's character, a hero known as the Warrior of Light, to aid in her succession bid. They are joined by some of the player's allies from the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, including the twins Alphinaud and Alisaie; Krile, who is pursuing the truth about her grandfather Galuf's travels to Tural; and Wuk Lamat's childhood friend Erenville. Koana, meanwhile, enlists the aid of the Scions Thancred and Urianger.

Story
The Warrior of Light's sea voyage to Tural is rocked by a massive thunderstorm, which damages structures throughout the continent. Upon arrival, Wuk Lamat introduces her entourage to the city of Tuliyollal and Gulool Ja Ja assembles the candidates to explain the rules of the contest. The winner is the candidate who first discovers the fabled 'city of gold' after completing all seven Feats in the Tuliyollal Saga, which retells the story of the nation's founding. Wuk Lamat and her companions travel across the land to find the electors of each clan who are in charge of administering the Feats. Following in her father's footsteps, Wuk Lamat tames an alpaca in Urqopacha and revives the failing reed crop in Kozama'uka. The candidates help the Moblins restore their economy following the devastation of the storm, completing another Feat. During a brief respite, Gulool Ja Ja confides in the player that he believes none of the candidates possess the character to become Dawnservant and that the contest was designed to develop them. Bakool Ja Ja, who was absent during the previous Feat, abducts Wuk Lamat to steal her keystone. Her companions cooperate with Koana's entourage to rescue her. In the highlands of Urqopacha, they seek the elector of the giants, who waits at the mountain peak. While the other candidates climb, Bakool Ja Ja sabotages the ice prison encasing Valigarmanda, freeing the calamity to terrorize the region. Zoraal Ja, Koana, Wuk Lamat, and their allies work together to vanquish the fiend, earning them keystones.

In Yak T'el, the candidates cook a traditional roast pork pibil, a recipe devised by Gulool Ja Ja during his journey. It was first prepared during the peace negotiations between the Xbr'aal and Mamool Ja people and represents their mutual understanding. After the trial, Wuk Lamat bests Bakool Ja Ja in single combat and reclaims her stolen keystone. They proceed to Mamook where the final challenge is to defeat an apparition of Gulool Ja Ja in his prime. Zoraal Ja fails and is disqualified when he attacks the elector. Bakool Ja Ja fails too when the elector, his father, banishes him for lacking keystones from the previous Feats. Before attempting the Feat herself, Wuk Lamat seeks to understand the Mamool Ja people as she did with each of the prior clans. Bakool Ja Ja's mother reveals the secret of producing two-headed Mamool Ja: a selective breeding program with a 99% mortality rate. With Bakool Ja Ja's support, the Mamool Ja reject the brutal practice and Wuk Lamat and Koana help them discover new crops that thrive in their forest, alleviating the conflict with the Xbr'aal. Koana relinquishes his candidacy to help Wuk Lamat defeat Gulool Ja Ja's apparition, completing the last Feat. Beneath the Mamool Ja cenotaph, they find the entrance to the city of gold, though it is blocked by a technologically advanced seal.

Gulool Ja Ja announces that Wuk Lamat is the winner of the contest. She nominates Koana to become co-Dawnservant with her, mirroring Gulool Ja Ja's two heads representing Resolve and Reason. During the coronation ceremony, Zoraal Ja steals the key to the golden city, which he learns is Alexandria, a civilization in an alternate dimension facing a crisis. He allies with the queen of Alexandria, Sphene, pledging to deliver them from disaster and becomes their king. While exploring Xak Tural after the coronation, the Warrior of Light discovers a massive electric barrier has descended over a region called Yyasulani. Airships emerge from the barrier carrying mechanical shock troops who lay siege upon Tuliyollal. Their commander is Zoraal Ja, now augmented by Alexandrian technology, who challenges Gulool Ja Ja to a duel for the throne. Though Gulool Ja Ja defeats him easily, his headpiece activates, resurrecting him from the dead and empowering him to victory. Unsatisfied that he needed a handicap to kill his elderly father, he challenges Wuk Lamat to find and kill him in Alexandria or his army will resume its assault. The Scions devise a plan to pierce the barrier using a train-delivered bomb which succeeds with the help of all the Turali clans. Inside, they discover that thirty years have passed within the dome since Zoraal Ja first arrived and used the power of the key to fuse the land of Yyasulani with a portion of Alexandria's dimension. The people of Xak Tural who were trapped inside the dome have assimilated into Alexandrian society, including the use of regulators—headpieces which allow the user to come back to life by expending souls harvested from the dead. Citizens who die of natural causes have their memories uploaded to a server in the Everkeep, Alexandria's central fortress, but this also causes any living regulator users to lose all memories and knowledge of the deceased.

Wuk Lamat befriends Queen Sphene, who is beloved by her people, both ex-Turali and Alexandrian, and is devoted to their welfare. Sphene dislikes Zoraal Ja's methods and entreats Wuk Lamat to help her remove him from power. They also meet Cahcuia, Erenville's mother, who leads a resistance group called Oblivion which is dedicated to ousting Zoraal Ja and stopping the process of dimensional fusion. While exploring Everkeep, they encounter a vagabond child who resembles Zoraal Ja and occasionally accepts food and shelter from Oblivion. They follow the child, Gulool Ja, to the ruins of Old Alexandria where they meet his guardian, Otis, a knight who volunteered as the first test subject for memory extraction centuries ago and has since been trapped in a robotic body. This technology allowed scientists to revive Sphene as a digital avatar who has been ruling Alexandria since.

Growing impatient, Zoraal Ja orders the attack on Tuliyollal but the better prepared Koana and the Scions rebuff it with the aid of Bakool Ja Ja and new allies from the east. Zoraal Ja reveals that the reason for the attack is to harvest the nation's souls in order to power the server that maintains the memories of all of Alexandria's dead citizens—the energy crisis that forced Sphene to ally with Zoraal Ja. With the genocide of Tuliyollal thwarted, he turns his soldiers on the living residents of Everkeep to power his ambitions. Sphene, Wuk Lamat, and the Scions do what they can to protect the citizens and confront Zoraal Ja at the summit of Everkeep. He spends all of his souls on enhancing his strength, saving none for resurrection, but is ultimately defeated. Sphene claims the key and uses it to continue dimensional fusion—she considers the memories of her people to be worth the sacrifice of all of Tural. The Scions travel to Living Memory in Sphene's dimension, a place where dead Alexandrians' memories can manifest in corporeal form. There, they find the memory of Cahcuia, who asks them to help her shut down the storage servers and allow their digital shades to rest. They encounter Otis in his human form and Krile's parents, the founders of Oblivion who sent her with the key across dimensions as an infant to stop Sphene from using it. During the final battle, Sphene attempts to delete her human memories to prevent remorse for her actions but Wuk Lamat breaks through to her. They reconcile and lament not meeting sooner when Sphene was alive as the last servers shut down. Sphene entrusts the safety of her living citizens to Wuk Lamat.

Development
After concluding a 10-year long storyline in Endwalker, Dawntrail was designed as a "summer vacation" for the Warrior of Light, the player's character. Naoki Yoshida, producer and director for the series, considers it the start of "season two" of a long-running television show, and hopes to use it to lay the groundwork for another 10 years of service. For Yoshida, it was important to reset the stakes of the conflict from a universe-ending threat to a more personal one.

A central endeavor of this expansion was the game's first major graphical overhaul since the original 2010 launch, which includes improved shadows, environmental and player textures, realtime lighting, and more detailed and varied environmental features like grass and flowers. It also includes support for a number of graphics upscaling technologies, such as DLSS and FSR. Yoshida called this the "first phase" of graphical improvements to the game because certain techniques were still unfeasible to apply to a realtime online game and he aimed to employ them in the future.

The focus on the "New World" in this expansion drew some pre-release criticism. The development team did additional research to properly and respectfully depict indigenous cultures in the game. A major theme of the game is the coming together of diverse cultures and values into a mutual understanding.

Music


Masayoshi Soken composed the majority of the expansion's score in addition to his duties as sound director. The soundtrack uses jazz as a basis due to fitting with the theme of diverse elements coming together.

Reception
Dawntrail received generally positive reviews, though notably lower than the critical acclaim Shadowbringers and Endwalker received. On review aggregator Metacritic, Dawntrail has an average score of 79/100 based on 23 critic reviews, indicating 'generally favorable' reviews, but the lowest score of the five expansions released.