'Final Fantasy XIV' Player Counts Predicted To Drop Below 1 Million After Disastrous 'Dawntrail' Expansion
Player counts for Final Fantasy XIV are expected to drop below one million after Square Enix released the Dawntrail expansion back in July 2024.
Japanese website Lucky Bancho revealed that following the release of Dawntrail, player counts contracted from 1.4 million to 1.1 million.
Reddit User Impressive_Wafer_287 also noted that only 39% of active players returned for patch 6.1 after the Dawntrail expansion.
Furthermore, he commented on the overall decline in players, “It is likely FFXIV will fall under 1 million active players soon, going under pre-Shadowbringers level.”
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Looking at Steam DB charts for the game, the release of Dawntrail did see peak concurrent players nearly break the all-time peak hitting 92,039 just shy of 95,150.
However, since then the concurrent player counts fell off a cliff. By September, it was only hitting peak concurrents below 30,000.
In the most recent 24-hour peak it only hit 22,420. The last time it had dipped that low was November 2020 when it hit a 24-hour peak of 20,458.
The Dawntrail expansion was heavily criticized by players. On Steam, the game currently has a “Mixed” rating and recent reviews are “Mostly Negative.”
One player wrote, “Dawntrail's writing, specifically the character writing takes SUCH a turn from previous expansions that the characters I spent the past couple of years adventuring with feel like cardboard cutouts of themselves. So yeah. Dawntrail isn't canon. Speak to Wuk Lamat for more information.”
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Even a positive review of the expansion notes it’s weak, “This expansion is kinda weak compared to the previous ones, but it is not my least favorite (I still think it is better thank Stormblood). It assumes the role of being a more light-hearted adventure, and I had a lot of fun in this regard. Exploring Tural was very enjoyable!
And it gets really good by the end, put some tears on my eyes.”
“So overall, very enjoyable expansion. It only looks bad because the previous expansion, Endwalker, was really really good, since it combined themes from the game as whole, and was intended to be the end of the story. But if you forget it, Dawntrail will still be tons of fun,” Mauricate added.
Others were much more harsh, “Have you ever played a D&D game where the DM has their own self-insert wish fulfillment character, who follows your party everywhere and takes the spotlight whenever he can? A game where the story is not about your characters, but the DM's character. You don't get to play, and the guy spends all night having a quasi-monologue, expositing the story to you and making his own precious character do all the cool ♥♥♥♥ that you wanted to do. Have you ever been bored out of your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind? That's what playing Dawntrail feels like. After the absolute masterpiece that was Shadowbringers, and my favorite fight in the entire game to end Endwalker, this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ embarrassing.”
Another posted, “As much as I love ffxiv I can't really recommend Dawntrail. The story REALLY feels like it was written by an AI.”
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YouTuber Hypnotic also noted the expansion was average, “The expansion overall is okay. I think it’s like average, really, to be honest with you. It’s nothing super exciting and it’s also nothing super boring either. It’s kind of just basic average.”
However, he notes there are also some egregious girl boss moments with Wuk Lamat, “I don’t like Wuk Lamat. I think she’s a basic ass character. I think she girl bosses it at the end. Even though she doesn’t start off that way, she definitely ends that way. It’s quite unfortunate, but that’s how it goes for the main story. … She’s very annoying. And they make her very annoying.”
What do you make of this prediction that Final Fantasy XIV will see it player counts drop below 1 million following the Dawntrail expansion?
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Yeah, it was kind of ... Underwhelming? I mean, I've recently heard some plot stuff that made me sit up and take notice, like Wuk Lamat and Sphene being alternates from Final Fantasy 9/the Source. Dawntrail had to set up a ton of baseline for future storylines. I just wish it hadn't beaten us in the face with the furry so much and let us see more of her brother. He was actually an interesting character, and IMO he should have been there for the second half of the game. Also they never let us hit the giant alarm gong in the main city. I'm still salty about that.