FFXIV Dawntrail reviews are out on Metacritic

[HighlanderClone]

So we're going from negative scores complaining about "wokeness" and "sbi" to exclusively transphobic now? Just trying to get a clear reading of your shifting goalpost.

Also whether I like the reviews or not, it is still review bombing. Ignoring it doesn't change that.

Most of them aren't about wokeness or SBI either lol. Let me literally print out the first ten I've seen.

Worst expansion to date. Coming off the back of an already divisive expansion, Endwalker, Dawntrail does absolutely nothing to innovate the player experience and in terms of story in comparison to earlier expansions, it's awful. Go talk to these three people, cutscene. Pick up these crates and walk to this circle. Talk to Wuk. Cutscene. This game is really, really starting to show its age. Not to mention that in their attempt at a "brand new adventure" they basically mimicked the plot beats of the last two expansions, retreading the same ground but with none of the same emotional intensity or build-up. It's hard to care about locales and characters when they all have incredibly two-dimensional motives and aims, names that are nonsensical and the most annoying character in the cast, Wuk, even turns up at the very last moment to steal the glory of one of the few entertaining parts of the MSQ. It's almost like a bad joke. Not to mention that the quality of the voice acting this time around, and the direction of the story presentation is absolutely abysmal. Cutscenes are as stiff and robotic as always, with reused rigs and assets everywhere. Even a lot of the expansion gear is just reskins from earlier expansions. Job design is as stale as it was in Endwalker, gradually every job is having both skill floor and ceiling lowered, meaning that even though you have all these jobs, they basically all play the same inside a role and really, there isn't enough utility between them for the differences to matter. It's beige. It's bland. Black Mage was butchered, so was Astrologian and Paladin. Samurai is a shell of its old self, and so many others. Two minute meta reigns supreme.I cannot in good faith recommend FF14 in it's current **** state. In its rush to tie up all remaining plot points in Endwalker for seemingly no real reason, XIV has sleepwalked off the edge of a cliff. It is possible to turn the game around and recapture some of the glory of the earlier expansions, but the jury is still out on whether Square Enix even cares to do so after the game's already been live for so long.

Wuk Lamat is the worst character in Final Fantasy XIV and she is in 99% of this expansion. She is the main character that you are forced to follow around and watch as they ruin every potentially good moment of this expansion. This story is dog it makes ARR look like a masterpiece. If the dev team have any braincells left they will kill off this trash character asap.

I AM NOT A HATER! I have spent 10 years playing this game, enjoying this game, and the most precious is I met lots of friends. Since gameplay became way more easy and convenient, there will always are good part and bad part, but when the Dawntrail released, I can't find out any good part now. Firstly, I played Tank(Warrior main) and Healer(Scholar and Astrologian) till Endwalker, and I started playing Blackmage in Endwalker. What cause the change is I found out the job design or balance to those two classes is too lazy and stupid, making me angry and disappointed, but Blackmage have something others don't have, which is every player can have their own playstyle, especially the flexibility and creativity it has. BUT THE DEV TEAM DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THEY CREATED, AND KILLED BLM IN DAWNTRAIL JUST LIKE WHAT THEY DID TO AST. Secondly, I'm not a big fan of story, but I do have some moments felt touched and tearing. The story about Emet Sel'ch and the Elidbus in Shadowbringer, the rainbow road to the final fight in Endwalker. Especially Elidbus's story, I can feel the loneliness and lost, and I still have that feeling when the image rush into my mind. There is no way I can judge the story in Dawntrail fairly because of my complaint of job design, but I still have thoughts that the story is too naive, too cheesy and too bland. Finally, to be honest, there are something I like in this new expansion, the mount alpaca, the mount Capybara ... I sincerely hope the dev team can change those flaws and FinalFantasy XIV can have another 10 years!

This expansion is so bad I would be happy if they disabled it and remade it. The story is so butchered that anything after this is going to be marred by all the problems and terrible writing decisions made. Not only is Wuk Lamat a horrible character with a terrible voice actor, and she is like 90% of the entire xpac, but there is nearly zero character growth or depth to her writing, AND she isn't even the worst character. There are so many characters that are even worse than Wuk Lamat, most of which are integral parts of the writing. Almost nothing feels like it makes sense in the entire expansion. Even the voice acting is all over the place. Peoples accents make no sense and it's like they've just randomly decided who sounds like what without taking any of the characters background into account, like where they were raised or who their parents are or anything. Just completely random accents. Gameplay wise the systems do not improve at all. Pretty much no class gets any improvements, and the few larger changes that are made are generally for the worse (monk). The bosses are good overall but some are also straight up bad. The scions are treated like tertiary characters and their character arcs are barely even tacked on, ruining them in the process. All in all the worst MMO Xpac I have ever played in my entire life and I quit immediately after finishing the main questline.

The most cringe-worthy characters in the world, horrible graphics, lack of plot, the worst expansion of the year is just not worth a single penny, even for free to play this solid mockery to be fair all expansions were mid, Square enix continues to review bot rebirth by deleting negative reviews since that’s Wack too Forspoken ? Strangers paradise ? Rebirth? Ff16 dlcs ? Dawn trial more like i ended my trial They consistently pump out trash

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Final Fantasy XIV's storytelling is mediocre without Ishikawa's writing. I've never been a huge fan of the Scions, but Ishikawa managed to breathe new life into them in Shadowbringers. They had banter, their own goals, and felt like they led their own lives whenever the player character wasn't around. They were far more proactive and their reactions to various story events felt true to their personalities. They acted more like real people. All of this is undone in Dawntrail. They're nothing more than cardboard cutouts, only reacting to events when it conveniently moves the plot along. It doesn't help that the new character, Wuk Lamat, takes up the vast majority of screen time to the point it feels SUFFOCATING. I can't help but wonder what the writers were thinking when they created her. She's a shallow protagonist from a shonen anime for 10-year-olds, in a game where the average player is now in their thirties. It almost feels insulting. On the bright side, you can tell the dev team has tried to fresh up the combat encounters, and in my opinion, they've mostly succeeded. The music is generally good and sounds more polished than Endwalker's soundtrack. The new maps are gorgeous, varied, and have a good sense of scale. Unfortunately, polished combat, gorgeous visuals and decent music are all things I can find in other games, and often better. What I still play for is XIV's story, its world, and its characters. I've been invested in it for over ten years. I wanted a promising continuation to a saga that, despite its flaws, is very dear to me. Instead, all I got was this snoozefest...

if you have purchased I recommended firstly cancelling your subscription, secondly get refund for expansion and thirdly uninstall it. One of the worst expansions i have ever played, do not waste your hard earned money square enix continues to drop appalling expansions and games repeatedly trying so hard to get their money back since rebirth flopped and everything else before so they resort to review botting it to save its score to trick consumers to buy their lifeless games/expansions.

Wuk Lamat are so annoying.I don't understand why they gave this npc so many roles but ignored the main character.

This expansion is a prime example of everything wrong with MMOs. The dialogue is absolutely horrendous cringe lifeless af this **** put me to sleep Zzz I thought Gollum was bad scam enix back at it again with another flop again

OK I just finally found one transphobic review after all that:

I wish there was an option to rate this expansion below zero. It absolutely deserve all the hate, it is not an expansion, it is a scam. Don't purchase if you did get it refunded. Trans trail morelike dropped a fail