A Toxic Culture in XIV

[Iscah]

You keep comparing it to separate games, when it is not. It's all 1 game. It's expansions of exactly the same game.

So, a better comparison would be games that add DLC to the end of their games to continue the story.

By that logic, then, everything past 2.0 is DLC. The level 50 side stories like Binding Coil are part of the story DLC for ARR. The level 60 stuff came as DLC for Heavensward, following ARR but preceding Stormblood. It all came out in the order that the writers intended it to be played.

And I still think they are better regarded as separate games. FFXIV is the series; ARR, Heavensward, Stormblood, etc are the games. Each one has a narrative beginning, climax, credits, post-credits, side stories happening at that point in the narrative. New expansion comes out and the cycle starts over.

Each one is a complete game in practice, despite how it's handled.