Final Fantasy XIV Dawn Trail: New Aesthetics - Pictomancer and Steampunk

                The third Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest panel happened today, and Dawntrail leads the franchise into new territory. From what we knew of Dawntrail before today, we only knew of the island areas in the game. I figured we would explore the island areas more in-depth, but early on in the presentation, Yoshi P showed concept artwork for a totally different type of area – steampunk futuristic style.

The raid series usually has a story that is fairly removed from the plotline of the main scenario quest, so it makes sense to have a futuristic raid in contrast with the island/Aztec/Mayan vibe of Dawntrail itself. With vibrant colors and futuristic technology, I’m fully expecting for Soken to dish out heavy amounts of electronic-style music for the boss fights.

(It looks like a tower of computer fans lol.)

While so many of us were expecting the new job to be Green Mage, splashing color across caPainter

The textures, color, and animation of the Painter is the first thing I’ve seen from Square Enix to actually show off the graphics update. It even did a much better job than the teaser for the other job (can’t remember atm lol) We got to see the job really

In other noteworthy news from the panel “Futures Rewritten Ultimate” will be the next ultimate raid, which will be something to look forward to after rigorously progging and clearing the savage version of “The Arcadion.”

To go along with this futuristic theme in parts of Dawntrail, the new main city for the expansion shares this theme. (Welcome to Night City, Warrior of Light). The name of the city is Sector 9 (check this)

Although I wish it would have been a full job instead, the Beast Master is making its way at some point during Dawntrail as a limited job! Regardless of how I feel, this is exciting news, especially for people who have enjoyed the blue mage content. Maybe the two jobs can do stuff together?

As many of us have hoped, there was more information and footage revealed on the graphics update. Overall, I found most of the graphics update character models shared at Fanfest in Japan to be a solid improvement. For example, the character below on the left doesn't have lively eyes or depth to the bangs of her hair, while the character model on the right has clear shading and stronger shadows, which make the character much more lively.