Highlights

  • The Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail PC benchmark launches on June 3 after delays due to instability issues.
  • Lighting changes made to the character creator show how graphics will appear in the upcoming expansion.
  • Adjustments to hair, facial expressions, and lip gloss aim to address player feedback for an improved experience.

Final Fantasy 14 players looking to see how their character will look in the upcoming Dawntrail expansion will soon have another chance, as Square Enix gave players a look at the changes made to its PC benchmark. The highly-anticipated update for the Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail PC benchmark will go live on Monday, June 3, after several issues discovered during testing forced Square Enix to push the release back by over a week.

Originally launched in April 2024, the Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail PC benchmark was a way for players to gauge how their machines would handle the new graphics update coming with the expansion. In addition, the Dawntrail benchmark included a character creator showing how each player's avatar could look with the updated graphics, as the lighting and facial features for all characters would see significant changes. However, players stated that the Dawntrail PC benchmark had issues and that character options were not up to the standard set by Square Enix. In response, Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida said an update to the benchmark would be developed to address player feedback.

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Even though the Dawntrail PC benchmark update was initially slated to launch around May 23, Square Enix said that the development team had to push it back following some issues that arose. According to a post on the Lodestone, Yoshida said the updated Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail PC benchmark will launch on Monday, June 3, after QA testing showed the client had some instability issues. The issues have since been addressed but caused them to redo their final testing reviews. Yoshida then covered some lighting changes made to the user interface in the benchmark to give players a better idea of how the game will appear.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail Updated PC Benchmark Details

  • Launches Monday, June 3, following delays during development.
  • Lighting changes were made to the character creator to show how Dawntrail's graphics would appear.
  • Further adjustments to hair, facial expressions, and lip gloss were made.

While the Final Fantasy 14 character creator usually adds a blue hue to the character creator to match the first background option, Yoshida admitted that this influenced the color perception of some hair and skin types, so the decision was made to remove it. Yoshida then showed off a few examples of updated lip gloss, eye pupils, and facial expressions. Although some hairstyles still used low-resolution textures, Yoshida said the developers took player feedback to ensure that the affected textures were updated to a higher resolution in the updated Dawntrail PC benchmark.

Yoshida reiterated that Final Fantasy 14 players can use the updated Fantasia timer in Dawntrail to make any changes to their character once the expansion enters early access on June 28. How players will respond to the new Dawntrail benchmark remains to be seen.