Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail Preview – A whole new world

Final Fantasy 14’s upcoming Dawntrail expansion is treading new ground in multiple ways. Not only has the Warrior of Light arrived on the shores of a mysterious new continent, but players are embarking on a brand new storyline separate from the conflict with Garlemand and the machinations of the Ascians that ran across the previous expansions. 

Dawntrail is set on Tural, a continent inspired by South America, with its own cultures and peoples separate from Eorzea. The storyline involves the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn becoming embroiled in a succession war between rival heirs, which may drive a wedge between these loyal companions. 

Dexerto recently participated in a preview event for Dawntrail, where I had hands-on time with the expansion’s new content and got an early look at Tural, one of the early dungeons that will appear, and the two new jobs that will be introduced. 

Tural’s beauty perfectly fits Final Fantasy 14’s graphical update

Square Enix

The Dawntrail preview was set in Tuliyollal, one of the new prominent zones players will visit, and its surrounding environs. Many of its NPCs were removed or given dummy dialogue to avoid spoilers, so I can’t say how active the zone will be when the expansion launches. 

What I can say is that Dawntrail looks incredible. Tural is a land of vibrant and varied plant life, with red and violet blooms dotted across the great green jungles, clear blue waters, and rolling sands. It’s truly a tropical paradise, with its fields of flowers standing out as some of the most visually striking landscapes seen in Final Fantasy 14. 

This isn’t to say that all of the cool-looking stuff belongs to nature, as Tuliyollal and the small settlements I visited were also gorgeous. The towns have a South American/Aztec aesthetic, with ancient buildings wrapped in colorful banners, evoking the expansion’s storyline of new leadership taking over from the old. 

Square Enix

While there weren’t many people around, the few present were all colorful characters belonging to a wide variety of races, some of which will be familiar to longtime Final Fantasy 14 fans (such as a tropical version of the Vanu Vanu race from Heavensward). There are plenty of new faces, all hanging around in bazaars and bars, adding to Dawntrail’s “Scions on holiday” theme. 

Outside of Tuliyollal, I also explored the volcanic mountainous region of Urqopacha and the jungles of Kozama’uka. Urqopacha had land scorched by magma, all wrapped around high cliffs and bodies of water, making it appear like many of the existing zones in Final Fantasy 14. By comparison, Kozama’uka was stunning, with waterfalls descending from rocky cliffs into different rivers, all holding back the ever-encroaching jungle and its monsters. 

Square Enix

What was interesting about exploring these locations was the strange murals found in hard-to-reach places. There are ancient carvings in caves depicting ancient cities and monstrous beings, with two warring figures shrouded in shadows, possibly hinting at Hydaelyn and Zodiark-like beings that will be important in the new storyline. 

The female Hrothgar is a great fit for the new environment

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Dawntrail introduces a new race to Final Fantasy 14, or rather, a new gender for an existing race, as female Hrothgar can now be chosen for your Warrior of Light. Like all races in Final Fantasy 14, your choice is more about aesthetics than gameplay, so female Hrothgar is intended for those who want to play a massive, muscle-bound catgirl. 

There are two variants of the female Hrothgar: Helions and The Lost. The default versions of Helions have a dark brown tone and fur, while The Lost have bluish-grey fur similar to certain domestic house cats. 

But that’s enough about Dawntrail’s new feline variant, as two brand new level 90 jobs are coming to the game: the Viper and Pictomancer. I had a chance to play as maximum-level versions of both jobs, experiencing all they had to offer. 

The Viper is about speed and piling on damage

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The Viper is a Melee DPS job focused on using two swords that can be combined into one weapon, similar to Zidane’s arsenal from Final Fantasy 9. In short, the Viper is a fast DPS class with several combos that buff your character or debuff enemies, depending on the order in which you cycle through moves.

Like many Final Fantasy 14 jobs, the Viper has gauges that the player needs to keep track of: Vipersight and Serpent’s Ire. 

Vipersight has two blades in its gauge, which are used as a visual indicator corresponding to attacks on your hotbar, letting the player know what move to use next in a combo to ensure the best results. Certain skills will also light up three gems on Vipersight (called Rattling Coils) that are spent using an attack called Uncoiled Fury.

The Serpent’s Ire gauge builds up when you use specific weapon skills and combos on enemies. Once the meter is built, you can use Reawaken to unlock Anguine Tributes on the gauge. These are then spent on a powerful combo chain that turns regular moves into First Generation through Fourth Generation. As you level up, these moves will upgrade to First Legacy through Fourth Legacy. 

Those are the basics of the Viper’s mechanics. You have several rotation options centered around the two gauges. But how does it play?

Of the two new jobs, the Viper is easily the more accessible of the two, and its overall speed and movement are a great fit for the faster pace of combat we experienced in Dawntrail’s new dungeon. The rotations and combos are easy to learn, helped by Vipersight actively showing the player the most effective next move in the combo. 

If you’re looking for an easy job to master while playing through Dawntrail’s MSQ, Viper is a great choice, especially if you’re used to the other Melee DPS classes. 

The Pictomancer job is about flashy spells & artful buffs

Square Enix

The Pictomancer is a Magical Ranged DPS job, where the player uses an arcane paintbrush and palette to cast spells that harm enemies and buff allies. Long-time Final Fantasy fans will recognize Pictomancer as the job used by Relm in Final Fantasy 6, though it works completely differently. 

Like the Viper, the Pictomancer has two gauges that need to be tracked: Canvases and the Palette Gauge. 

The Palette Gauge is the simplest of the two. The Pictomancer has Aetherhue DPS spell combos tied to colors (Fire in Red, Aero in Green, etc) that fill up the Palette Gauge. You can then spend Palette Gauge to use the Subtractive Palette ability, which powers up the Aetherhue spells. The Palette Gauge also has White Paint dots (with a maximum stack of five), which can be used to cast the powerful Holy in White spell, with later abilities unlocking Comet in Black. 

The Pictomancer has three Canvases: Creature, Weapon, and Landscape. The Creature Canvas lets you draw a Moogle for ranged attacks, the Weapon Canvas lets you strike with an oversized hammer, and the Landscape Canvas has spells that buff the party. You use abilities that fill out the Canvases, resulting in different spells.

What’s interesting about the Canvases is that using them in different orders produces different effects. Indeed, the gradual rotation over the levels is all about using a combo that summons Madeen (another Final Fantasy 6 reference) for new attacks.

It’s not obvious at first how you should go about this, and there is definite trial and error in mastering the Canvases, as it’s not apparent from visual cues how they’re supposed to work together, especially as specific Canvases get wiped if you use them in a certain order.

Once you master Pictomancer, however, it’s a lot of fun to play. It’s more complicated than the Viper, but pulling off the artwork-based combos is visually stunning and satisfying. The fact that they can throw out party-wide buffs during these explosive spells is a bonus. 

It’s a shame that only two creatures are involved with the rotation (a Moogle and Madeen), as a wider variety of monsters would have been a welcome addition to the job’s already impressive aesthetic. That said, it feels like extra monsters will be saved for moves added in future expansions. 

It also bears mentioning that the Pictomancer is slower than the Viper, with longer cast times for its spells and a hammer that takes an eternity to swing. Luckily, players have one useful movement option: Smudge. This sends the caster flying toward the enemy using paint reminiscent of movement options in Splatoon. You just need to be extra careful about where you plant your feet when attacking. 

Diving into the Ihuykatumu dungeon

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During my Dawntrail preview, I had access to a single dungeon: Ihuykatumu, which is intended for level 91 characters, so it’s likely one of the first (if not the first) dungeons in the expansion. 

Ihuykatumu has an incredibly exciting start, as the Warrior of Light and members of the Scions are on board a massive airboat in pursuit of a similar vessel. That’s right; the game drops the Aztec imagery for a Florida swamp excursion in one of its first dungeons! 

The airboat is swiftly attacked by enemies, and the classic Final Fantasy 14 combat begins as winged monstrosities and massive fish swoop the deck. Unfortunately, this segment doesn’t have any exciting boss encounters, as the airboat is forced to land, and a more conventional dungeon begins as the Warrior of Light follows a path through the wilderness, tackling monsters along the way. 

Ihuykatumu has three boss monsters: Prime Punity, Drowsie, and Apex Predator Apollyon. Prime Punity is a massive manatee that can summon smaller manatees as part of attacks that involve sliding around the arena and crushing you under its bulk as they leap around. It’s not exactly the hardest boss fight in the world, but it’s an amusing and cute creature to start things off.

Drowsie is equally as adorable, looking like a mixture between Sulley from Monster’s Inc. and an Ent from The Lord of the Rings. It poses a much bigger threat, however, playing a jungle drum beat that summons massive vines, which move around the arena and deal massive damage. He also summons strange blob-like creatures that transform into humanoids, which surround the party. 

Apollyon is a massive mantis that towers over the party. This bloated bug starts as a usual boss, but throughout the fight, other monsters appear in the arena and attack Apollyon, causing it to slay them and eat their bodies, allowing it to evolve in the process, growing wings and then scythes on its arms. 

The bosses in Ihuykatumu demonstrate a faster combat pace for Dawntrail’s dungeons, and Apollyon is the best example of this. In his final phase, it summons a cyclone that moves around the arena with damage indicators, showing when it’s about to fire off blasts of wind. Apollyon is also dashing around the arena, throwing out powerful slicing attacks. 

Apollyon took a fair few attempts for me to defeat, and I had a much easier time using the Viper, as the job’s added mobility made it easier to survive all of the attacks flying around in the final phase. Despite this, Apollyon never felt unfair or overpowered.

The bosses in Ihuykatumu require more attention and reaction from the player, and if these are from an early dungeon, I can’t wait to see what the later areas have to offer!

Welcome to Tural

Square Enix

Dawntrail represents a step in a new direction for Final Fantasy 14, beginning with the first step you take in Tural. Everything feels fresh and new, like how a person feels when they go on vacation and leave their tedium behind. 

For now, Dawntrail feels familiar and different from what has come before. This is a whole new world that I can’t wait to explore, and the mysteries of this continent and its inhabitants make me even more excited to step off the boat and go on an adventure. 

This article is based on play of an in-development build of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.