What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[aveyond-dreams]

I also think that there's a rather deceptive element at play when it comes to reviewing MMO's in particular because each content patch can drastically change the quality of an overall expansion. For example, I enjoyed the patch content in Stormblood much more than I liked the expansion's base MSQ and then where Shadowbringers is concerned I ended up liking the base expansion much more than the content we received in the subsequent patches.

Endwalker is in a particularly unique position since the development team chose to abruptly end a lot of the core story arcs at the same time in favour of pursuing some...new, completely unknown story threads as of 6.1 and beyond.

So not only do we have a situation where a lot of people are, quite rightly, raising an eyebrow at large aspects of the story receiving a rushed conclusion...there isn't a guarantee that what comes next is going to grip existing players in the same way as the previous expansion stories did.

I feel quite similar. While I enjoyed Endwalker's story a lot I fear about the quality of the next round of patches prior to 7.0. Of Shadowbringer's patches, the only ones where the story felt worthwhile for me to get invested in were 5.3 and 5.5, with the others just not hitting the mark for me.

I also have concerns as to the state the world of FFXIV is left in, godless, bereft of its dominant imperial presence, with a lot of characters whose stories should have ended ages ago (the scions) still finding ways to resurface only to exhaust my patience further-while the characters who I resonated most strongly with (Hades/Hythlo/Venat) have quite literally exited stage right.

In terms of future settings I am also concerned because given the story trends in FFXIV the now freed imperial territories might end up making yet another republic as opposed to more fantasy-like monarchies, grand duchies, etc. and the community sentiment that Meracydia must draw from directly from Africa or Austrailia, which is just a baffling concept to me. The New World being a direct copy of the Americas is also something that I would struggle to stomach an entire expansion's worth of.

To that end, I have been working on a 7.0 concept project with my friend group that I'd like to post under General at some point before the upcoming live letter, which would represent a hard tilt back towards core "Final Fantasy," complete with its own title logo, characters, extended plot synopsis, systems, screenshots, and all. I'll share the completed title screen below, albeit in a reduced size compared to the bigger version for the concept's thread.