Highlights
- Final Fantasy 14's upcoming graphics update in Dawntrail is adding incredible depth and fidelity to models and textures.
- The Dawntrail expansion brings exciting new content, including a new continent, two new jobs, an increased level cap, and system updates, as revealed at the first in-person Fan Festival in nearly five years.
- The graphical improvements in Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail update are better than the early development images and are expected to surpass the original 1.0 graphics, offering a much-improved visual experience.
Final Fantasy 14 just showed off some incredible footage of the new graphics update coming in Dawntrail. This new upgrade is adding depth to models, textures, and graphical fidelity that will allow players to see Final Fantasy 14 in a whole new way.
The first in-person Fan Festival in nearly five years has revealed tons of new information about Final Fantasy 14 and the Dawntrail expansion. This next major update adds an exciting new continent full of challenges and mysteries, two new jobs, an increased level cap, and several system updates.
Among these, one of the most highly-anticipated features of Dawntrail is the graphics update. First introduced nearly two years ago, Final Fantasy 14 showed off the progress it was making on the graphical improvements. During the keynote address, director and producer Naoki Yoshida revealed side-by-side footage of the original and Dawntrail versions of the character models, gear, and environments. Metal shines and reflects light, faces are smooth and gorgeous, and grass and flowers are abundant, rich, and saturated with color.
Last year, when Final Fantasy 14 first introduced the graphics update, it revealed a couple screenshots of the character models and environment changes it hoped to make. However, this new footage is leagues ahead of those early development images. It seems the new fidelity of Final Fantasy 14 will finally surpass that of the original 1.0 graphics–which had infamously poor optimization because of overly-complicated models for games of that era.
Of course, an increase in the graphical fidelity of Final Fantasy 14 brings with it an increase to the minimum and recommended system requirements for PC. Most computers should still be able to run the game, but players should make sure to get any required upgrades before Dawntrail releases next summer. The PS4 client will still work fine and will receive support for the foreseeable future, and the recently-announced Xbox Series X/S version of Final Fantasy 14 will become available in Spring before the expansion’s release.
Dawntrail itself looks like an exciting new chapter of Final Fantasy 14. Marketed as the “best summer vacation ever,” Dawntrail breaks away from the serious tones of Endwalker to set the stage for an expansion full of exploration, adventure, and intrigue across Tural, the continent known to Eorzea as the New World. Players can expect to learn more about Dawntrail at the London Fan Festival on October 21 and at the final convention in Tokyo near the beginning of 2024.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5 with an Xbox Series X version coming in Spring 2024.
