Almost 7,500 hours later… it's time to say goodbye.

I've loved Final Fantasy XIV for years—met some of my closest friends, spent an ungodly amount of money, and sunk thousands of hours into it. So, of course, I will recommend it, but this will largely be a review of why the game has lost me now. Endwalker was an incredible high point, a perfect send-off to a decade-long journey, and I don't regret a second of it. The storytelling in Endwalker was some of the best I’ve ever experienced in an MMO. The depth of the characters, especially the Ascians, was phenomenal—complex, heartfelt, and deeply resonant. It tackled existential themes in a way that hit even harder during the height of COVID, making it feel personal and cathartic. The emotional weight of that expansion, the way it brought together years of storylines and character growth—it was peak FFXIV. It’s the kind of storytelling that sticks with you and I will always be grateful to have experienced it.

But after that? I just couldn’t get into Dawntrail. I don’t think it was ever meant to live up to Endwalker—how could it? But after everything we’ve been through as the Warrior of Light, the supposed Hero of Eorzea, Dawntrail just didn’t hit right for me. The lack of engaging rewards and compelling content made it feel like we were just treading water rather than embarking on a new, exciting chapter. This expansion just felt... empty. No real stakes, no gripping narrative weight, and nothing pulling me forward. I wanted to love it, I really did—but it just didn’t have the same spark.

And honestly, the cracks have been showing for a while. The game has a bad habit of making content obsolete—grindy, fun content like Eureka, Bozja, and Deep Dungeons are basically ghost towns because there’s no reason to go back. Why can’t we get relevant rewards from these? Why is the only viable way to progress locked behind daily roulettes and the same dungeon grind? ESO figured this out ages ago—FFXIV could, too. Give players more relevant cross-activity rewards for their time, and appropriate EXPERIENCE. Why doesn't Eureka help you level alts?? Why can't they throw content restricted rewards (like old Savage Raid gear or special outfits) AND tomestones in the deep dungeons or instance areas like Bozja where we can hang out and grind mindlessly for them. It's an easy way to keep veteran players entertained since we've done everything else and are SO tired of roulette leveling, while also keeping older content relevant.

Then there’s the glamours. I loved this game for the roleplay, the customization, the endless fashion game. But lately? Recolors of old outfits, uninspired designs—it lost its shine. And don’t even get me started on housing. Player housing was supposed to be a thriving community space, but in reality? Neighborhoods are full of people who log in once a month just to pay their “rent” and keep their plot/decor/submarines from being wasted—which was me for two years. That’s not a housing system, that’s a hostage situation. Why can’t we just have instanced housing, where everyone can have a home and still have ways to visit other players' homes through a searchable system? Instead, we’re stuck with an artificial scarcity model where housing isn’t about creativity or community—it’s about keeping a subscription active so you don’t lose your investment. That’s a terrible system, and it’s long overdue for a fix.

*edited because I forgot to comment on this too*
One of the other big frustrations I’ve had, especially as a long-time player, is getting new friends into the game. If you’ve been playing for years and unlocked everything, good luck getting your friends to the endgame with you let alone on the same server, thanks to congestion and character creation restrictions. I had a bunch of new friends who wanted to play, but the process of getting them to where I was? Painful. Everything is locked behind hours of mandatory story quests, and a lot of them are fetch quests that just aren’t fun to grind through. Imagine telling someone, yeah, you can come play with me! But first, go complete hundreds of quests, read through cutscenes you may or may not care about, and grind solo for dozens of hours before we can even do something together OR spend 100 bucks on the game and the story boost and have no idea what you're doing. Some MMOs let you jump right in and experience content together—FFXIV gates it behind an endless solo journey in between dungeon unlocks. So that was a deciding factor for a lot of friends, including my partner, who simply didn’t want to grind through a story just to play with me. And honestly, I don’t blame them, and by now the game system just isn't new player friendly in contrast with MMO's like WoW or ESO.

So yeah, it’s bittersweet, but after nearly 10 years, I’m letting my sub lapse. I still recommend FFXIV—it’s been a phenomenal journey—but I can’t pretend the magic is still there. Maybe one day it will be again, but I don't have my hopes up.

The game is like any other MMO yes, it has its differences though. After all, it is square enix, and they deliver.

New players are drowned under quests, but the lore/story is really good and interesting. The graphics are what they are, nothing to complain about. Gears/outfits for classes and races not too bad, I would let the race ones be usable by others though.

The glamour thing is a little hard to understand, I need to look at a guide on the side myself and a friend of mine doesn't understand it very good as well. There is always people to help you with a dungeon too, it doesn't take forever for parties to form and I like that.

Leveling would be super long if we didn't move to another server with double XP though, they should make it a bit less complex on that side (Since it's not different from any other questing mmo) but at the same time, it's not that painful (you can skip most of the cut scenes).

I recommend this game, it's nice and me & some friends are enjoying it (I had a big apprehension about Final Fantasy before I tried this one.) We'll see, but after 80+ hours played, I can at least say it's fun!

I like this game