As I sat in a (mercifully) conditioned room within Potsdam's Biosphäre rainforest, checking out a snippet of Final Fantasy 14's upcoming expansion Dawntrail, I experienced a weird dichotomy between intense familiarity and a palpable excitement for a brand-new start. It may be the game's fifth(!) expansion, but it's sort of a second volume. A part two if you will, or I suppose part three if you count pre-A Realm Reborn.
The major narrative arc that has defined the last 10 years of Final Fantasy 14 is done and dusted, which means an entirely new adventure for our Warriors of Light. We've still got some of the same old faces along for the ride, but we're finally departing Eorzea and heading west to the new continent, Tural. Though I wasn't able to play any of the story parts of Dawntrail—multiple NPCs had been hidden from me to avoid anything spoilery getting out there—I was able to check out the expansion's first dungeon, explore city hub Tulliyolal and its adjacent areas, give new classes Viper and Pictomancer a try, and bask in what is a surprisingly stellar graphical update.
