The reception to Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail’s story has been as much of a journey as the expansion itself. It was never going to be easy, being the first expansion to build a brand-new arc following a decade of excellent storytelling, and unfortunately it didn’t quite land initially.
Criticisms around its core narrative have largely abated over the last few patches, though, as we near the next expansion Evercold in January. And with its final batch of quests now unleashed upon players I’m here to declare: this might be the greatest final MSQ patch we’ve ever received.
Spoilers ahead for Patch 7.56 of Dawntrail, if that wasn’t already obvious.
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Dawntrail’s final quests serve as less of a light teaser for what’s to come in Evercold, and instead feel like a straight-up prologue to the expansion. That’s wildly different from what I’ve come to expect from these patch quests. Sure, we usually spend a few patches building up to what’s next, dropping little hints and then using the final patch quests to introduce a new character or setting as a fun little hype-builder.
But this felt… different, somehow. Almost as if we were playing the first few quests of Evercold. The patch already goes ahead and drops us straight into the ice-clad Fourth—that’s the reflection we’ll be spending our time in during the expansion—and almost immediately into an encounter against foes we’ll undoubtedly face in the future.
Our character introduction teaser comes in the form of Visna, an adorable young catgirl with her wits about her and a dab hand with a crossbow. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing: this patch seems to be straight-up showing off the currently unrevealed physical ranged job. Creative Studio 3 still seems to be keeping its cards somewhat close to its chest with it, though. Visna doesn’t have many animations, aside from one move where she cleaves clusters of enemies and calls out to her falcon.
But just being able to see it, without even knowing anything about it, is the exact sort of pre-expansion hype I’m a total sucker for. Coupled with Visna charismatically explaining what the Fourth’s all about: Differently-branded folks confined to certain homes, all of which happen to be gigantic airships on account of the surface being completely frozen over for the last 500 years. Get too close to someone with a different brand? Well, according to Visna, there’s a good chance one or both of you will die for it. It’s a great opportunity to info dump in advance, already letting us know what we’re in for.
The whole thing builds up to getting us ready to head to Evercold’s first location, Naglfar, while cleverly confining us to a tiny, separate area that still gives us a glimpse of what sort of vibe we can anticipate. The real thing’ll come with Evercold itself, naturally, but it felt like I was already able to dip a toe into the expansion even while restricted to a singular floating platform.
Everything ends right before we plan to set off to Naglfar, leaving Evercold in the perfect position to throw us straight into the action. Not that I mind a little new-expansion-preamble, but Creative Studio 3 slapping it in the previous expansion is a great way to get the ball rolling on the next one even quicker than it might usually be able to. It was all incredibly refreshing in a way I simply had not expected, and I could feel myself getting those new-expansion fuzzy feelings even with Evercold four entire months away.
I think it’s an excellent direction for Dawntrail’s final moments to take—especially in an expansion that has been largely disparaged on the narrative front—setting the stage in a way that feels a little bit different to expansions past. It’s still difficult to tell what sort of expansion Evercold is going to be based on a relatively short batch of quests, but I’m incredibly excited to find out.
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