You can play without it, you will have a lot of stuff to get through before Dawntrail, anyway. Negative reviews mostly concern the story, but that's something you'll have to judge for yourself. And currently, the game is experiencing some content drought, but you shouldn't have issues going through everything from the beginning; people still run old content and you also have NPC support for dungeons.

As for the next expansion, we're gonna have to wait for around 2 years. They're probably going to announce something in 2026.

You should buy it because it will give you Shadowbringers and Endwalker with it. They are incredible expansions. And then, if you want to get the new jobs and new level cap and do all the new content, Dawntrail will be there for you when or if you decide to. If not, you can play perfectly fine without Dawntrail.

EDIT
We don't have the date for the next expansion.

The expansions aren't broken out like the other main MMOs. The only expansion you can buy is Dawntrail and it gives you all previous expansions. You can wait to buy Dawntrail until you get past the first two expansions, I believe those come with the base game.

You will need to play the MSQ (main story quests) to unlock content, so you'll have to do it in order. The MSQ is pretty hit or miss but the rest of the content in each expansion is pretty good the whole way. People still do all the duties/raids/etc so you don't have to worry about finding people to do group content with. If you prefer to do it alone a lot of content can be done with a party of NPCs instead of other players.

Originally posted by Zeption™:

So i want to play FF and started a new character will be playing it for the following months and i notice that the last expansion Dawntrail haves negative reviews and complains about it

soo here is tue quesiton's
should i buy the Dawntrail expansion or can i just play FF without it? not sure how much the player base is base on new content or if people still play the other expansion

also side question but is there any date for a new expansion? this is just mere curiosity nothing else

edit: btw do i get the Endwalker expansion if i buy Dawntrail ?

just buy the complete edition people who complained about DT are something you will never have to worry about

When you buy Dawntrail then you will get access to Shadowbringers and Endwalker as well and since the MSQ is pretty much your way of progression within the game then you will go through the story of those.

You can play the game on the starter edition or free trial but you will be limited to Stormblood at most. buying the latest expansion is pretty much the default for every FF14 player who is actively subbed and playing.

About 8.0 and when that one is coming? No details were announced as of yet and it will take a long while before we get there. I assume we might get a new expansion at the end of 2026 or early 2027 based on the current pace of development

The negative reviews are mostly nonsense.

You will spend a LONG time playing before you reach dawntrail, so dont worry. The game is about the journey not the destination so much. It takes a very long time to complete the main story quests (MSQ) and depending on how often you play you are looking at half a year easily.

The negative reviews i think are the culmination of years of "neglect" in a sense. ff14 has had a bit of a rough time the past few years in terms of content, and since the main point of the game is the story and the dawntrail story is almost universally hated and considered the worst in the game by far, it was sort of the straw that broke the camels back. Prior to dawntrail it had been just over 3 years since the launch of the previous expansion, and while they add patches inbetween it felt like a content drought. Plus the expansion prior endwalker had its own issues, mostly in a lack of endgame content. So when 3 years later you get another expansion that has a lack of endgame content plus having a terrible story, theres no redeeming qualities for the expansion. Theres a reason their player count dropped like a rock after its launch.

Another concern is how they handled the feedback from dawntrail, which was basically "kick rocks" so many now feel that future content wont be very good. Personally dawntrail is why i quit, and i have no intentions of going back if that will be the standard going forward. But i enjoyed my time playing and i do think its 100 percent worth playing.

Originally posted by Ranch:

You will spend a LONG time playing before you reach dawntrail, so dont worry. The game is about the journey not the destination so much. It takes a very long time to complete the main story quests (MSQ) and depending on how often you play you are looking at half a year easily.

The negative reviews i think are the culmination of years of "neglect" in a sense. ff14 has had a bit of a rough time the past few years in terms of content, and since the main point of the game is the story and the dawntrail story is almost universally hated and considered the worst in the game by far, it was sort of the straw that broke the camels back. Prior to dawntrail it had been just over 3 years since the launch of the previous expansion, and while they add patches inbetween it felt like a content drought. Plus the expansion prior endwalker had its own issues, mostly in a lack of endgame content. So when 3 years later you get another expansion that has a lack of endgame content plus having a terrible story, theres no redeeming qualities for the expansion. Theres a reason their player count dropped like a rock after its launch.

Another concern is how they handled the feedback from dawntrail, which was basically "kick rocks" so many now feel that future content wont be very good. Personally dawntrail is why i quit, and i have no intentions of going back if that will be the standard going forward. But i enjoyed my time playing and i do think its 100 percent worth playing.

It's refreshing to see a comment actually tell it as it is.

I don't consider the negative reviews nonsense. If I could give a sideways thumb review, I would. I don't own the game through Steam, but through their own store. If anything, this new expansion could be skipped. Though I think some things are cool, I didn't care for the content much. Wuk Lamat wasn't a issue to me like it was to others.

Originally posted by Remnar:

I don't consider the negative reviews nonsense. If I could give a sideways thumb review, I would. I don't own the game through Steam, but through their own store. If anything, this new expansion could be skipped. Though I think some things are cool, I didn't care for the content much. Wuk Lamat wasn't a issue to me like it was to others.

The voicelines were so bad they had to re-record them. never have they *ever* had to do that before.

People will say ARR voices were worse, they *never* had to do that before.

I think losing quality is what happens when you outsource. It even happened to Boeing, with the quality of their aluminum sheets or w/e. I forgot the name of the company SquareEnix outsourced to, but I think it started with Endwalker. I get having to make such hard decisions to keep the company going, but there's a difference between excessive greed and need.

Its an okay expansion thats just my opinion though. Thats all people can give you. Its not an outright bad expansion. Its an expansion that was literally made to start building up the next "decade storyline" the way heavensword did. It shares alot of similarities in the sense of being an expansion that just is about cliched exposition. They both have awkward pacing and questionable dialogue scattered through out it. (seems alot of people have forgotten about that). Its still better then some other mmo's expansions as whole if we are talking about content wise.

I wouldn't say the negative reviews are all nonsense. There are some people with legit concerns about things that didn't rub them the right way. Theres a good amount of people complaining thinking that the quality of something starting a story would be similar to something that is ending a story. Then you have people who just outright hate it because of there being a trans voice actress who plays a big role in the campaign. Anyway you should look up some videos on the expansion and see if it would be something youd be interested in. If you are just starting out you shouldn't even really be looking at it since you have SO much content to go through before that point.

Originally posted by Gothicc Feeldoe:

Its an okay expansion thats just my opinion though. Thats all people can give you. Its not an outright bad expansion. Its an expansion that was literally made to start building up the next "decade storyline" the way heavensword did. It shares alot of similarities in the sense of being an expansion that just is about cliched exposition. They both have awkward pacing and questionable dialogue scattered through out it. (seems alot of people have forgotten about that). Its still better then some other mmo's expansions as whole if we are talking about content wise.

I wouldn't say the negative reviews are all nonsense. There are some people with legit concerns about things that didn't rub them the right way. Theres a good amount of people complaining thinking that the quality of something starting a story would be similar to something that is ending a story. Then you have people who just outright hate it because of there being a trans voice actress who plays a big role in the campaign. Anyway you should look up some videos on the expansion and see if it would be something youd be interested in. If you are just starting out you shouldn't even really be looking at it since you have SO much content to go through before that point.

Why is starting a story expected to have a worse story than the ending of one? If anything it should be the opposite. You need to get people invested. The story has always been the main point, it has to be good and stating its the start of a new chapter doesnt excuse that. Like i said, if anything it should be held to an even higher standard. And people who play ff14 dont care about a trans VA, most of the people who play ff14 are lgbt thats just stupid. They care because the voice is incredibly annoying, their story/dialogue is absolutely terrible, and the character is involved way too often. You dont see to understand why people dont like this expansion. If you liked it great, clearly alot of the players didnt or they wouldnt be having the huge dropoff they are having right now. It does not do the game a service by ignoring the criticism and disregarding the opinions people have, both positive and negative. Your attitude on it is the same attitude square enix has on the criticism, and thats bad and its why people like me are concerned about the direction of the game.

Originally posted by Ranch:

Originally posted by Gothicc Feeldoe:

Its an okay expansion thats just my opinion though. Thats all people can give you. Its not an outright bad expansion. Its an expansion that was literally made to start building up the next "decade storyline" the way heavensword did. It shares alot of similarities in the sense of being an expansion that just is about cliched exposition. They both have awkward pacing and questionable dialogue scattered through out it. (seems alot of people have forgotten about that). Its still better then some other mmo's expansions as whole if we are talking about content wise.

I wouldn't say the negative reviews are all nonsense. There are some people with legit concerns about things that didn't rub them the right way. Theres a good amount of people complaining thinking that the quality of something starting a story would be similar to something that is ending a story. Then you have people who just outright hate it because of there being a trans voice actress who plays a big role in the campaign. Anyway you should look up some videos on the expansion and see if it would be something youd be interested in. If you are just starting out you shouldn't even really be looking at it since you have SO much content to go through before that point.

Why is starting a story expected to have a worse story than the ending of one? If anything it should be the opposite. You need to get people invested. The story has always been the main point, it has to be good and stating its the start of a new chapter doesnt excuse that. Like i said, if anything it should be held to an even higher standard. And people who play ff14 dont care about a trans VA, most of the people who play ff14 are lgbt thats just stupid. They care because the voice is incredibly annoying, their story/dialogue is absolutely terrible, and the character is involved way too often. You dont see to understand why people dont like this expansion. If you liked it great, clearly alot of the players didnt or they wouldnt be having the huge dropoff they are having right now. It does not do the game a service by ignoring the criticism and disregarding the opinions people have, both positive and negative. Your attitude on it is the same attitude square enix has on the criticism, and thats bad and its why people like me are concerned about the direction of the game.

I never said it was a good decision on their part to decide to revert back to the format of story telling they had that the start rather than try and keep up the momentum of endwalker. I was just saying that it wasn't a terrible expansion like some people make it out to be.

I get where you are coming from I really do because I have friends who have the same exact opinion on it. End of the day it's to each their own. Would I preferred they kept momentum of endwalker? Yes of course. Do I wish they wouldn't double down on certain anime cliches? Again yes. I don't agree with some of the changes to classes but some of the changes are good and some of the other content outside of story is pretty good and even better then endwalker.

People make it seem like they just half assed an expansion just to keep the game relevant. When before dawn trail was even released Yoshi and other devs kept saying that this expansion was basically going to be slower to build up to something. It's an okay expansion. Better than some of the others (like heaven sword and storm blood). They still are trying to make adjustments to fit both casual and elitist players which is hard balance to figure out especially in an MMORPG.

Compared to other recent expansions for other MMOs it's not bad. Guild wars 2 one was released with similar price with less content (bunch of recycled content), the wow expansion that came out was smaller then previous didn't add no where near as much content mid and end game but was priced higher.

Again though I understand frustration people have. Gaming in general is in a very awkward spot. But at least square is trying to figure out what to do next for ff14. Whether it's good or bad that's really up to personal interpretation. Lot of people keep forgetting that. Just because you don't like something means it's bad.

It's hard to say... I only started to like the game at the end of Realreborn. The later expansions were worth it. It was really worth it. I didn't buy Dawntrail. They say the game ended with Endwalker.