Is it just me, or are Expansions getting more brutal and depressing every time?

I don't have a problem with the Last Days being a thing only in certain regions -- they described the reason for it in the story itself.
The problem I see is the inconsistencies in the role quests, which had people turn in places like Ishgard or AlaMhigo, where this either shouldn't have happened at all, or on a much broader scale, with thousands of people turning into monsters.
This was a faux pas from a storytelling perspective.

In general, I didn't feel like the story was really depressing. Only Garlemald gave off that hopeless, post-apocalyptic vibe, and Garlemald itself looked like a map of the outskirts, not the city itself. If this was all that was Garlemald, the whole story doesn't make sense to begin with.

Not particularly. HW was a bit sad, SB was more tame, ShB was an emotional roller coaster, EW was meh.

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Originally Posted by Velnora

Wish they would make this game M rated, so we could have story of actual depth.

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Most of the successful games you're probably thinking of are single-player RPGs.

M-rated MMORPGs are few and far between, mostly because an MMORPG with that rating isn't worth developing from an economic perspective. I understand Grand Theft Auto Online had about 220,000 players at peak. If you're going to tell me that the MMO add-on to the GTA5 story line has "actual depth" I'm going to laugh a lot.

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Originally Posted by EirolOcarrol

Endwalker certainly lives up to the depressing implications of it theme and does not hold back.

Final Fantasy XIV has always had dark moments. But despite mostly only doing the MSQ and rushing. It took me until yesterday to complete it, even though I started in Early Access. Because I had to force myself to take breaks at multiple points in the story.

I'm an emotional wreck. Friends and family had had to ask why I look so sad and distraught. And when I tell them it's a video game, they tell me to stop playing it. I think I'm going crazy. I feel really empty and sad a lot in a way I didn't before starting this expansion.

There have always been really dark moments in the story. So I find it hard rationalizing why the brutal moments in Endwalker have been a last straw. I took a break for a couple days at a couple parts in Stormblood and Shadowbringers to feel better. But this has been by far the worst.

I honestly don't feel like I'm thinking straight when I play it. And I've been a complete sad emotional wreck throughout the journey. And not as my most mentally healthy, either.

I really hope this is the last time they get as dark as this somehow. Because this has been a very painful experience.

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Other Final Fantasy games have done the dark and dire phase better. If anything, FF games always do this but leave this ray of hope at the end of the tunnel that things will be restored to normal after the final confrontation with the big baddy. Want hopelessness? play Dark Souls, there's no happy ending at the end.

I think it's only natural for FFXIV. Like many other FF games, like FF6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14...etc, lol! The more you learn about the world your playing in the darker it becomes until you finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel and everything starts to begin looking up again.

I am sorry and I don't want to hurt you but what fucking part of the story was remotely sad. There was no point where it fells like any one can be dead. At this point SE made the same problem DBZ. Death meaning nothing.
The onlly characters that was killed was 2 stupid girls we don't even know.

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Originally Posted by SamsaraTrickstar

There was no point where it fells like any one can be dead. At this point SE made the same problem DBZ. Death meaning nothing.
The onlly characters that was killed was 2 stupid girls we don't even know.

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Because sadness is not an emotion exclusive to death? Not all of us are obssessed with seeing people dying in order to feel sad.

I'd say the themes of existential nihilism and the reality that life will always have pain along the way can overbear some people who struggle with those things. Though, if that's the case then it's possibly for the best to either break from the game itself/skip it if it's affecting one too greatly. Since, it's not a healthy response to a piece of media and doing what one needs to do in order to stay well is going to always take precedence over experiencing a fiction.

But the resolution to those initial themes of the antagonists, is to provide an understanding that even when an existence ultimately might be meaningless in the grand scheme of a cosmos, universe etc... that simply finding meaning in the existence one does have is a worthy endeavor, and does not make it any less meaningless. And with the moments that do bring sadness/strife/struggle etc... there'll be moments that provide the opposite, and to take those moments graciously.

It has heavy moments, but it's ultimately a story about overcoming a nihilistic despair, which is a generally a relatable sort of despair people tend to feel when they dwell on their own mortality and what that means. Heavy moments kind of go hand in hand with that.

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

and Garlemald itself looked like a map of the outskirts, not the city itself. If this was all that was Garlemald, the whole story doesn't make sense to begin with.

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It's stated in the game that we flew over most of the country in airships to go straight to the capital. And that we could only pull that because of the civil war and the upheaval caused by the Telophoroi. Much like the Azim Steppe, we only see the part that's immediately relevant to the plot.

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Originally Posted by SamsaraTrickstar

I am sorry and I don't want to hurt you but what fucking part of the story was remotely sad. There was no point where it fells like any one can be dead. At this point SE made the same problem DBZ. Death meaning nothing.
The onlly characters that was killed was 2 stupid girls we don't even know.

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I know your thing.. is trolling.. or at least being "edgy".. but lots of people died who weren't the two girls in

Garlemald. I suppose what you'll say next is that they all were so inconsequential you forgot, but not only did people die, we saw someone basically lose his mind and go from the most empathetic caring creator to a nihilistic madman, a loyal and steadfast leader choosing suicide over accepting the truth or at least accepting the world had changed and he might still be able to contribute, someone else wade through grim knowledge they had and trying to rally their dying people while knowing it was mostly futile.. there was even a dungeon where we got to see very briefly a mother lose hope and turn into a monster right in front of her children who then follow.

There's a lot of depressing and sad moments in the story. Were you paying attention at all?