Keen to avoid some of the mistakes of Final Fantasy 14’s post-Endwalker content run, Square Enix is ensuring Dawntrail gets the flexible open-world content fans have been missing.
During the latest Fan Fest held in Tokyo, director and producer Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida reveals that Dawntrail is getting a new Field Operation akin to Shadowbringers’ The Bozjan Southern Front or Stormblood’s The Forbidden Land, Eureka.
As per Nova Crystallis, the team received plenty of feedback about Endwalker not having one, so that’s being remedied in the next expansion. You’ll have to wait for more information, though Yoshi-P says the new Field Operation requires plenty of players to clear, which is likely to be music to the ears of many.
Field Operations are some of Final Fantasy 14’s more open-world content, allowing solo players and parties to gather in one instance to tackle large-scale public challenges. What those tasks entail differs on the Field Operation, though you can come and go as you please without putting anyone at a significant disadvantage.
So why does that matter? A recurring topic of conversation throughout the MMO community following Endwalker is a dearth of ‘midcore’ content. Simply put, casual fans may be catered to by logging on here and there to catch up on the story, blast some dungeons, and sample ‘lifestyle content’ like Island Sanctuary, which turns the MMO into a farming sim. Hardcore fans with set raid groups, meanwhile, have challenges like Eureka Orthos, Criterion Savage, and more to topple.
Midcore content is for the fans in between. Those who want to spend more time with Final Fantasy 14 than just keeping up with the story but don’t have the time to master brutal raids regularly or a friend group with an equal interest in doing so.
Content like Bojza provides those fans with a solution: an open field filled with foes and stronger enemies on a timer that unlocks even nastier bads when toppled. Styled similarly to the MMO’s FATEs – open-world encounters that people can freely opt in and out of – these encounters offer you the challenge of a raid encounter while making dying no biggie – shoutout to the red chocobo.
That’s not to say Final Fantasy 14 doesn’t have systems in place to allow solo players to group up with others to tackle difficult raid content. It’s just that the added time it takes to see that content through can be a drag, and a rotating cast of strangers rarely matches the chemistry of a consistent group of friends, nor does it feel like how you should be raiding. Bojza can also be tackled solo or with a group of friends, though entering a plane locked in constant conflict (regardless of whether you’re there or not) stops playing alone from feeling against design intent.
Even if you weren't in Bojza to be trampled by the red chocobo, you were likely there to stock up on what you needed to grind out Shadowbringers’ Relic weapons or other materials to get something else. The communal grind further added to the sense of unity around the place and was sorely missed when it came time to get Endwalker’s Relic weapons.
Powerful endgame gear that serves as a chase item to those who don’t want or can’t raid, they typically require you to engage new content offered within an expansion. While that was Bozja for Shadowbringers, Endwalker required you to complete an optional, admittedly hilarious questline that stretched over the MMO’s 10-year history. Fans weren’t big on that, nor were they keen on the standard fare materials needed to progress the Relic quest, materials they had plenty of.
Final Fantasy 14’s Dawntrail expansion has plenty of challenges. The momentum of a 10-year story concluding is no longer here, and Blizzard is upping its game to prevent further ‘WoW refugees’ from leaving. Things for the ‘midcore’ fans to do between story beats, though, hopefully, shouldn’t be an issue.
If Square Enix fired him, Final Fantasy 14's Yoshi-P says he'd still play the MMO and just complain to the development team.
