It’s normal for the peaks and valleys of an MMO’s player count to correlate with expansion releases and the fallow years in between. So it’s no surprise that Dawntrail, the new expansion for Final Fantasy 14, has boosted the player count for Square Enix’s decade-old MMO. But despite the mixed reactions from players, people may not have expected it to set a new record for concurrent players.
The news comes from FF14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida, delivered in a official blog post The post focuses primarily on upcoming changes to the game’s many jobs, but in the intro, Yoshida takes a second to thank the Warriors of Light for exploring Dawntrail, and reveals the good news about player numbers. “Thanks to your support, we’ve been able to reach a record number of concurrent users that we haven’t seen since A Realm Reborn released in 2013,” he writes. A Realm Reborn was FF14’s relaunch after version 1.0 was discontinued in late 2012, though Yoshida doesn’t give specific numbers.
The news is quite shocking to me, given the mixed reception Dawntrail has received. The expansion is something of a fresh start for the MMO, having wrapped up a decade-long story with 2021’s Endwalker. Rather than the universe-ending threats Warriors of Light has faced in the last two expansions, Dawntrail is a return to good old-fashioned adventures, this time through the Latin American-inspired locale of Tural.
The new content has lower stakes than previous expansions and makes the player a secondary character, allowing the focus to be on the new character, Wuk Lamat. Because of these changes, the expansion has been incredibly controversial. Not to mention that unless you buy a story and skip levels, as a new player you won’t be able to dive right into the MMO’s supposed “fresh start.” I fail to understand what it is about this expansion that has gotten everyone excited to play, unlike more critically acclaimed and talked about expansions like Shadowbringers.
Regardless, I’m glad to see this decade-old MMO thriving. I hope a good portion of these new and returning players stick around for what’s to come after Dawntrail’s fresh start.