This story is really underwhelming - it's opened to mixed reviews.

[Ritsugamesh]

Gotta agree with the general consensus here. It was a tough job for CBU3 to take on, but it's a mess of their own making at the end of the day.

Throughout all the expansions we raised and raised the stakes, but I don't look at the trials in Heavensward and think 'that's such small fry' compared to ShB. It had weight, there were threats, lives were lost, and sacrifices made. Endwalker kind of went crazy shooting us to the moon, travelling back in time to be at the origin of the whole problem's making, and murdering the very gods that established the universe we live in. And it also did so without us actually really sacrificing anything for it. We dismantled Garlemald, stopped the final days, destroyed the very last link the Ascians and killed Zenos too. After that... What could really matter?

The 6.x story was already pretty mid and lacked any of the nuance we've enjoyed during ShB-EW era writing, but Dawntrail is just on another level. We are a literal fragment, the possible last remnant, of a powerful precursor race, and very likely the most powerful being left alive on Eorzea AND the other shards - so the logical thing is to trapse around the jungle and avoid treading on sacred flowers or whatever that zone's custom is. It's just so dull. Nobody is under threat, nothing really matters, and the impact here doesn't really mean anything. Even if it does, the world is kind of 'solved' at this point. We did it. We saved everything.

It's made worse that they TRY and make things feel threatening, but it just isn't. We had a similar concept in ShB - a new world, new traditions, unfamiliar environs - but the whole thing was underpinned by moving pieces and the machinations of greater plots. We just don't have anything here.

The only way they could have salvaged the plot they've gone with - at least the first half - is to let you choose your promise. But that'd be too wild for them to consider.

EDIT: One other important thought. With ShB - we went to a new land and nobody knew who we were. So everything felt normal. It seems in DT our reputation precedes us and most people are well aware who we are and what we've achieved. Would you really mess with someone you know saved the entire planet? Yet they still want to throw hands at the first sign of tension.

I honestly feel that people will look on Dawntrail unfavourably, but come to realise that much of the blame does lie with Endwalker. It was just a bit too crazy compared to what came before. Now we're back with our feet on the ground and the grass is not greener for it.

[AnotherHighlander]

I honestly feel that people will look on Dawntrail unfavourably, but come to realise that much of the blame does lie with Endwalker. It was just a bit too crazy compared to what came before. Now we're back with our feet on the ground and the grass is not greener for it.

Stakes aren't the problem, genuinely. There are so many stories in literature that have far lower stakes than whatever was going on in EW, but they manage to make them compelling and engaging to read through. The problem is bad writing, and not just bad writing but insultingly bad characterization of the characters, themes, and world, wrapped with incessant moralizing more apt for a toddler than any functioning adult.

[Raven2014]

Gotta agree with the general consensus here. It was a tough job for CBU3 to take on, but it's a mess of their own making at the end of the day.

Throughout all the expansions we raised and raised the stakes, but I don't look at the trials in Heavensward and think 'that's such small fry' compared to ShB.

Had nothing to do with that, the problems lie more with they can not buckle their own trend. I said it many times, if they want they can commit Dawn Trail to a full adventure ala Lara Croff/ India John, those games often very interesting story without the world ending thing. But instead, they decided to half-arse and back pedal in the later half. The whole Sphene/new reflection was totally unnecessary given what they said would be the main theme of DT. It would have been much better for the 2nd of the MSQ to be introduced at 7.3, and give Sphene/Endless their appropriate attention as the center of the next expansion kinda like how they set up Zeros and WoD. The fact that they had to jam an out of place world ending threat in the back half of their "fun and adventure" expack make me think SE is incapable of writing something with low skate.


Another problem with the writing team is their obsession with the "everyone is nice deepdown no matter how bad they look at the surface", this eliminate a lot of their options to diverse the narrative and thus they gonna keep go down the same road.