It may be the game's fifth! A part two if you will, or I suppose part three if you count pre-A Realm Reborn. The major narrative arc that has defined the last 10 years of Final Fantasy 14 is done and dusted, which means an entirely new adventure for our Warriors of Light.
We've still got some of the same old faces along for the ride, but we're finally departing Eorzea and heading west to the new continent, Tural. Though I wasn't able to play any of the story parts of Dawntrail—multiple NPCs had been hidden from me to avoid anything spoilery getting out there—I was able to check out the expansion's first dungeon, explore city hub Tulliyolal and its adjacent areas, give new classes Viper and Pictomancer a try, and bask in what is a surprisingly stellar graphical update.
I say surprisingly because when it was revealed, the system requirements barely budged. They went up, sure, but not enough in a way that I thought would lead to any meaningful optimisations.
We've already seen glimpses of it across various livestreams, but being smack-bang in the middle of the plush jungle zone Kozama'uka really allowed the changes to shine. Flowers and grass appeared more crisp, less like a mushy block of green. The changes to lighting worked wonders too, as it's now more reactive to the world and the character models, rather than inherently baked in, which could make for some awkward shadows on players and the environment pre 7.
It's worth noting that the build I played hadn't implemented the changes to character models and lighting that were bundled in with the new benchmark earlier this week, but I was able to take a look at how some of the new job gear looked and I was pleasantly surprised.
