As Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail benchmark turns some of the MMO's players into cursed beings with "lifeless" eyes, Yoshi-P apologizes and promises a new one

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Noaki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida is sorry about all that

Final Fantasy 14
(Image credit: Square Enix)

The Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail benchmark is here, giving MMO fans a glimpse into what their characters will look like after the graphical update in patch 7.0. While plenty are rather pleased about their Warrior of Lights glow-ups, some have been left looking worse for wear.

But fret not, director and producer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida says that's because some issues are at play that can be solved with a new and improved benchmark you'll get soon. 

Yoshi-P explains in a new blog post that the character creation system you see was designed 10 years ago and should have been updated "but was overlooked as we prioritized the development of Dawntrail and tuning the graphical update in the actual game."

As such, if you find your character's eyes "lifeless," facial contours flattened, or gloss lacking or excessive, an upcoming graphical update should sort your Warrior of Light out.

"We are currently expediting a rework of the environments and light sources of character creation for both the actual game and the benchmark; once that is complete, the current benchmark will be replaced," Yoshi-P says.

Lala evolving into dolphin? I can't unsee these teeth from r/ffxiv

That's the first part of the issue the team has identified, the second relates to how the game handles the requirement to modify "an enormous amount of data" – which I assume means your character changing appearance. 

Thankfully, those issues are steadily being remedied as Square Enix nears Dawntrail's release, though said issues have remained in the benchmark due to "simple data-related errors or neglecting to reflect the upcoming changes to the benchmark environment."

As such, the game is experiencing issues with unimplementing high-resolution textures for certain races, certain circumstances making certain characters' necklines look off, and more. Much like the first point, the issues will be resolved both in a new benchmark release and in Dawntrail itself. 

"My apologies for asking you to bear with us as we address the points of concern," Yoshida says. "The team and I will continue doing our best for the graphical update and Dawntrail's release, and we would appreciate your continued support!"

10 years ago, Final Fantasy 14's hard-fought revival was nearly derailed by an infamous boss who Yoshi-P says made 300,000 defeated players drop the MMO.

Iain Harris
Iain Harris
News Editor, Games

I joined GamesRadar+ in May 2022 following stints at PCGamesN and PocketGamer.Biz, with some freelance for Kotaku UK, RockPaperShotgun, and VG24/7 thrown in for good measure. When I'm not running the news team on the games side, you'll find me putting News Editor duties to one side to play the hottest JRPG of 20 years ago or pillaging the depths of Final Fantasy 14 for a swanky new cloak – the more colourful, the better.