FINAL FANTASY XIV Online

My favorite game of all time. As an all things fantasy lover, I cannot believe it took me this long to get into it, but I have gained over 600 hours including my free trial time in only 5 months, and I could not think of a better use for my time. The emotions I have felt and the fun I've had I haven't experienced with any other game, let alone another MMO. And as a World of Warcraft kid, I can confidently say that I uninstalled WoW, and stopped my sub the second I finished Heavensward. I have found my game. This is it.

The MSQ is really enjoyable, and the several sets of End of Game Content make the game extra fun to play.

After playing this game for a small amount of time, I find this game pretty fun. I did have a party to play this with, which helped a lot with the enjoyment of the game. Just a very fun time overall and there's a lot of great people playing this game.

We are at a point where the current expansion's story is widely considered the worst its ever been, we're routinely waiting half a year or more for content to be drip fed to us, job diversity is all around awful (they largely all play the same within their own role), and based on the last live letter, they're gonna lobotomize Black Mage.

I love this game but I would never recommend it right now. The developers really need to read player feedback because the game is in an awful state right now and frankly I'd recommend anyone who does play to unsubscribe until Square gets their shit together.

final fentesy foarteenn is the best gaem to spend your life in grinding while high on crack. great gameplay, music, story and not too expensive each month.

Fun timesink-game with a massive amount of diverse content. Fails at what makes most MMOs great (No fun loot, no incentive to socialize/network, no playstyle expression through builds or customization), excels however through really great storylines as well as very fun to learn and well-crafted combat scenarios all the way from levelling dungeons to endgame raidbosses.

(Obligatory mention of the very big free trial this game has, just try it!)

this is an awesome game to play solo or with friends. the network of players online is great, the people here are great. they have a great community here and I would recommend new players to this game, I was warmly welcomed and helped within 5 minutes when I asked for assistance.

It's a good mmo and at the same time the final nail in the coffin of me every trying a game of that genre again. Just absolutely horrid gameplay with every new expansion you start being an annoying slog as you need to waste hours of your life collecting orbs to be able to move at more than a snails pace. This then forces you to walk through giant worlds with next to nothing in them for most of it. That in itself is a big shame, because while the base game and Stormblood stories are very boring and don't do anything interesting, Heavensward worked really well as a closed off story. I'd love to have experienced more of that in the later expacs, but not with that gameplay.

I have mitigated feelings about this game, but the overall result is positive. Now I have only 20 hours game play, so my opinion will need an update later on.

I like mainly:
- The beautiful animals and races. Even the foes, some are so cute that I feel bad having to kill them! LOL
- The landscapes
- The stories and large choice of different activities, that don't exclude each other so we can do everything.

I dislike mainly:
- The combat concept: if we move, casting is interrupted (!). So, it's either I cast but suffers under foes damages, or I escape fields of damages, but can't cast. That's strange to me. As well that there is no dodging.
- The travel concept: either expensive or taking long time and can be unsafe if we chose to run.
- The map and its markers, for me very confusing. I had to abandon leves, because out of all the markers on the map, I was unable to understand/see where is the target I need to reach.

I would have a lot more to say, but I keep it at the main first impressions out of those 20 hours I did up to now. I recommend the game because it's fun. For the combat concept, I come from other games where it's different and I probably need some time to adapt. For the travelling, maybe that I will discover later that it can be a bit more user friendly. Time will tell.

The story really is a guilty pleasure. Soundtrack Definitely gives that classic final fantasy feeling. The fact you can play this with friends is honestly just a bonus. 55 Hours in and loving it so far.

It's a fun game whether you like to play with people or solo. If you like FF it still has some of the old feels and venues of the old games like the Golden Saucer, just updated graphics and a different story.

I have put almost 5000 hours into this game. I figured it was time to recommend it. If you are looking for a game that will give you everything you need to call it home. Then here it is. The sub is annoying, and sometimes the story is mild af, especially in the beginning.

That being said, I still haven't even done everything in this game and I'm 5k hours in. With plans to maybe beat it all eventually. Get it and welcome home.

Its fun but can be pretty slow sometimes. I would say if your looking for a chill game with lots of time and with occasionally hype fight moments this is for you!

My very first MMO. Very impressed by the depth of the game, there are many layers to it and I think I'll be uncovering them for a long time to come! Server performance is incredible, frames are amazing, extremely happy with the way this game runs and plays.

vry much enjoy, long but entertaining. also love the group of friends i have there as well!

The game is decent but after playing it for hours on end. I can't deal with the launcher of this game anymore. Switching pc or playing from a new location just becomes a nightmare of watching YouTube tutorials just to get the game to launch. Would rather play wow or old school runescape at this point.

After 1,319 hours and a little over a year I have finished the MSQ (and several side-quests XD) of Final Fantasy XIV and I can officially say this is one of if not my favorite games! Final Fantasy XIV was my first ever MMORPG and I went into it kinda hesitant since it was so different then when I normally play but, thanks to a good friend of mine teaching me how to play, it was easy for me to get into it. And because of this friend, I have met amazing people and have been introduced to a really fun and engaging game! Anyways time for the actual review XD

Final Fantasy XIV is a MMORPG with a really deep and entertaining story that is full of very memorable (and not-so-memorable) characters that build up this overwhelmingly thought out and complex world! The story might start off pretty bland (or in my opinion it did) but it pretty quickly pulls you in with specific things that i won't say for spoiler reasons but when specific events start happening, you just have to know what happens next and then soon you find yourself at the end of the first expansion (ARR - A Realm Reborn). Heavensward is the next expansion and has some of the best story telling, pacing, and presentation I have ever seen in any game and it is the peak of this game in my opinion, that's not to say it gets worse, some might argue it does an others may not, I would say it never gets as good as heavensward was but it never gets "bad" per-say. Anyways, this review is getting too long so I'ma go over some other just more side/fun things this game has to offer! The game offers many ways to connect with other players outside of main content like having the Gold Saucer which is like a in-game casino with many mini-games, challenges and board games to play with friends and make new ones! There are also these things called "Fates" which are like, timed world instances that you can do with other players and help each other out, level up, or just do them to kill time. Triple Triad is a really fun, competitive card game that lets you collect hundreds of cards and use them to challenge npc's, friends or compete in tourments. There are many more fun side things to do in this game to kill time when you are just wanting to like, not do the msq XD! Also Final Fantasy XIV doesn't lock to into your class! You can change it at any point and experiment with classes/jobs you might find interesting or fun!
With all these great things in this game, unfortunatly there are some issues I had with it during my play-through. My biggest issue personally is since its a pay-per-month game, some months I couldn't afford it, which made it hard to keep track of parts of the story, not only that, the story is so long, good but long, to the point where its hard to keep track of whats happening/what happened. Albeit that might just be a me issue, but there was parts where I just felt like the story became a huge blob of chaos and unorginisation lol. Another issue with it was some characters where just so like, "basic?" and followed very commonly used tropes/stories which made them very unmemorable and even just annoying at times, like, "ughh this person again??"

But yeah, this is my review about Final Fantasy XIV and what i loved and didn't love about it. I really hope this helps people decide if they want to play this game or not, in the end it has flaws yes, but, I would argue that despite these flaws it is still a amazing, fun and entertaining game through and through! There might have been some stuff I missed I don't know but yeah, again, hope this helps at least someone and if it does I hope you enjoy the game!

I love a good MMO and FFXIV delivers. Great mechanics and graphics.

The main quest is kind of boring for the first bit, especially for healer, but all of the cool later quest/side quest options, as well as the awesome community, really makes up for it. The game is much better with friends, especially dungeons. Cool mechanics and relatively newbie friendly tutorials. Players are quick to help out if you need something. Would recommend to anyone who has the time to get fully invested into a game.

awesome game play with a great story. vary fun mmo with a bunch to do great game

My preferred MMORPG experience. Great story, relaxed gearing system that doesn't demand an inordinate amount of time to get into raiding, fun raids, lots of social features and things to do outside of combat.

This game was really fun before everyone else started playing it and got really weird about it. If I had a time machine I would go back and play this game for the first time again as a person that is sane and loves Final Fantasy XI. Overall, good game. Overoverall, ehh.

i have a few hours in this game and i am not even close to having finished the story (i reached shadowbringer). the story is absolutely fantastic so even just for it alone, i can suggest playing this game!

this game is honestly so much fun and looks great.
the community is incredibly friendly and even though i have not made many new friends in the game yet, it is just great to talk to other people. (me not really making friends is due to social anxiety anyway, the game itself gives a lot of opportunities to actually talk to other people and i feel like most people are always open to chat!)

this game also gives me the opportunity to hang out with friends that live far away, so we can just meet up here.
one day i will invite them into my house but for now, i still need to save up a lot of gil and a lot of luck to get one!

there is no pay to win, only pay to get specific cosmetics or emotes or mounts. just a lot of optional things you don't necessarily need.

please try this game. the free trial is long, so you will already play a lot without even paying anything!
it isn't even expensive either, especially if you go for the entry level (being able to make 8 characters is already a lot).

Do not purchase physical game time cards or risk losing your entire account.

This account system + launcher is the fucking worst. I tried several different paths to try and understand what my ID is (the recovery function doesn't work). The password reset step either opens a weird buggy overlay window in their BS launcher or on the web page gives me a technical error without further description.

Basically, if you ever forget your account credentials for this game there is no coming back because Square Enix never thought it would be necessary to invest into the launcher / account management experience and functions.

Too much of my life has been wasted on this game.

It literally died when it was first released and "brought back to life".

The story is garbage until you get to heavensward, it absolutely peaks at stormblood, drops a bit at endwalker, and with Dawntrail, completely slaughtered it.

The game is fine, but the people that play it make this game an incredibly hard pass for me.

The game is fine for a while. I just wouldn't recommend it since there's hundreds of better games out there.

Final Fantasy XIV seamlessly blends MMO gameplay mechanics with the rich storytelling the series is known for.
The story Places your character central to a compelling narrative filled with intricate characters and evolving plots. While some early gameplay elements have suffered due to simplification and streamlining for newer players to catch up, the game compensates with a vast array of activities, from challenging raids to leisurely pursuits like fishing and home development.

I highly recommend Final Fantasy XIV for those willing to invest the time into its Story Questline.

Game is in decline, Square is refusing to put any money into this game, even though its pretty much whats keeping them afloat at this point, and long standing issues that shouldve been amended years ago are not because either stubbornness (e.g. glams/transmogs still being locked to jobs for no real reason) or "technical reasons" (e.g. there are 20 glam/transmog loadouts for 21 combat jobs...).

Recent content has gotten really formulaic, stale and scarce, the most recent expansion (Dawntrail) had such horrible writing that its not even worth watching the cutscenes.

There is enough good content in the game to be worth playing it (until you reach dawntrail), but the future of this game is looking bleak.

somehow i got screwed when i went from the free service to buying the game and dlc. its been years and i still have not been able to get this issue resolved

I am going out on a limb here but I actually enjoyed Dawntrail so far. I did not enjoy it more than other expansions but it was what I expect and more for an intro to a knew story. And I mean new as it ten years of story had ended in Endwalker and Dawntrail is the start of another ten-ish years. And I have yet to find a reason to not continue playing Final Fantasy 14. This is just an opinion though.

I thought for a long time, if I can recommend FF14 and Dawntrail was a dealbreak in that regard.

Endgame content is lacking. Combat is mushy, server tickrate is pisspoor. It can be fun, sure, but it doesn't stand up to competition of wow or guild wars. And as much as rabid fanbase of this game will defend it with foam at their mouths that it's perfectly balanced and such, if you look to the charts for 0.1 second, you will notice that it is far, FAR from it. To the point, where certain group comps couldn't clear certain content on my memory period.

This bleeds into many other systems: glamour (aka transmog) is a violation of geneva convention, the amount of obsolete systems that clutter the game is just absurd. Like storage being ADDITIONAL subscription fee in already highly-priced sub-based mmo? 1.40£ per retainer per month? Yeh, no.

In many ways, game both expects it's problems to be fixed via modding community and at the same time, holds strict "no mods" policy, at least publicly so. Viera hats where, Yoshi P? Mods do make experience tolerable, and yet it seems SE team is dead-set on keeping eyes and ears shut, and not addressing reasons people use mods to begin with. And yes, we were promised chat bubbles (revolutionary addition in 2025, I know), and even half a year after Dawntrail they are nowhere to be seen.


This leaves us with one thing alone: MSQ. Main story of FF14 has ups and downs. ARR can be a slog, Heavensward is awesome, Stormblood and first third of Shadowbringers can be a slog, latter part and Endwalker are good. But that is the main issue with it: If MSQ sucks, entire game falls apart.
And Dawntrail sucks fucking hard.

Great game if you're trying for the first time. The story is great and community as well.
Unfortunately I just couldn't get through dawntrail....

FFXIV is very beautiful. Very organized and polished.
It feels like a single player game.
One thing that surprised me in this game was the education and patience of the players.
The story is very good, it has an incredible mosaic.
But it uses terrible literary techniques.
Like tonal dissonance, and in addition to that, exhausting interactions on purpose.
For someone who speaks another language natively, even though I am fluent in English,
it is very exhausting to follow the story. Due to the constant delay.
So to solve this, I am simply skipping all the dialogues and watching the history on youtube.

tl/dr: Game is good.

One of, if not, the best stories in any game ever made and on top of that the raiding is the best in any mmo I've played. The community is welcoming and forgiving, and the classes(jobs as they are called in-game) all feel interesting and rewarding to play. The free trial is meme'ed to death for a reason as it is more like a free all you can eat buffet with hundreds, or even upwards of a thousand, hours of game play just in the free "trial" with no limit on game time. My only problem with the game is that no matter how much I try to step away and play other games I have this addiction that can only be sated by Final Fantasy 14.

I genuinely believe this game has the best story in the MMO space, and one of the better stories in gaming in general.

With that said, Square is struggling right now to make this MMO more than just a story game with a co-op raiding scene and some social aspects that haven’t seen any real iterations to their core in almost a decade.

The focus of new Non-Story game content primarily sits in endgame raiding and several patch-long (drip fed updates across several months to a year) closed game systems that have little impact to the rest of the game outside of cosmetics that will no longer see updates once the next expansion releases.

Classes and stats have been homogenized and made mostly inoffensive. In this MMO, there are no builds or managing stats to create a different way to play your class. DPS classes all have the same outcome with little variation. Burst windows that arrive every couple of minutes. Some are more utility based, but still follow the same formula and often aren’t worth bringing for their utility because the name of the game is simply outputting damage. Healers are either primarily healers or shielders, but do both. It still just comes down to damage mitigation, healing, healing over time, and doing damage to provide some damage while continuing to heal. Tanks just need to damage mitigate and not die. This all sounds obvious, but in other MMOs, a single class can fill several roles all in different ways by adjusting how the abilities work and by tuning your stats. This is not a thing in FFXIV.

Gear exists simply to increase your numbers so you deal a bit more damage, have more health, or heal a bit more. They are just stat sticks to make sure your numbers are comparable with the content you are doing. They have no meaningful impact on how you play.

The high level raid and trial encounters are one of four main pillars for content to play once you have finished the several hundred hours of story content the game has. It receives the most love from Square with several new additions in some form every patch and expansion. Most of this content will not be experienced by most players. Optimistic estimations place Savage raid participation at less than 30% of endgame players. There’s a whole additional tier of difficulty even after Savage. Ultimate clear rates seem to be in the single digits.

Granted, it likely takes less manpower to create this content than entire questlines and overhauls to old systems. However, it really demonstrates Square’s priorities when this style of play sees new content sometimes several times in the same several month path cycles, but housing has seen zero major update, iteration, or innovation since it came out like a decade ago AND Square continues to enforce artificial scarcity by limiting available plots for housing.

Next is PvP, which sees updates with maps, cosmetics, and other typical PvP content. I can’t speak on player interaction with PvP, but in the 30 people I’ve met in XIV and spent time with, maybe 1 or 2 spent more than a surface leven amount of time with the PvP.

Next is the Social aspect of the game. This comes in Roleplaying, Trading, Community-led events, Free Company (guilds) Activities, and Housing. These systems, despite carrying the casual part of the playerbase, very rarely see updates, iterations, or innovation. Housing hasn’t seen any meaningful updates in years outside of allowing the insides of houses to be as large as the player wants. Trading is the same as always. Gather and craft for major patches that include new crafted gear and for consumables for new raids every several months. Free Companies got crafting projects in Heavensward, almost 10 years ago and then had one more crafting project added back in Stormblood in 2018. The social aspect of the game, which is the most interacted with pillar, is almost entirely upheld by the community at this point and is augmented with modding that is actually against SE’s terms of service, but won’t ever actually be fought against because the RP community would crumble without it. Square actively refuses to innovate or make these systems more accessible.

The last pillar is the amalgamation of whatever new closed-loop non-evergreen content they release in the post-msq patches. Diadem, which was a gathering/crafting centric event where Square had the community build up a district back in 2020. Some parts of this are still interact-able and is even a great way to level crafters and gatherers in lower levels. Bojza, a wartorn area where you raise reputation, complete public events, gain levels for combat classes, and get unique cosmetics. Island Sanctuary, you gather materials, build up some facilities, and implement production schedules to get some cosmetics. These additions have a couple of problems though.

They are often complex systems that are added to over the course of several patches, so they take a fair bit of resources to build, but after the post-expansion patches cycles they’re a part of are over, they are never revisted.

They effectively exist in their own bubbles and the only stuff that carries to the rest of the game is cosmetics and whatever levels you gain from the ones that provide it. Once you’ve gained the cosmetics you want, the content is done for you and there’s no point in interacting with it again. Island Sanctuary doesn’t use the existing crafting and gathering classes and the crafted items do not leave the island. Even the products of the production schedules are non-tangible items.

Novel experiences like this ARE worthwhile additions to the game, but when they are the *only* new content casual players ever get is content that effectively expires when you get the couple of items you want, there is no meaningful long-terms goals for casual players.

Aside from these pillars, even the story of the game has been stale since the first post-patch of endwalker. Dawntrail was downright awful narratively. Even aside from that, the community has been pointing out lately that the last three main expansion MSQs follow the same structural formula. 6 areas, the last area is all about learning about the past to cope with the present. A final boss you defeat to show the error of their ways. A split path in the second waves of quests for the msq and you have to do both. The problem is Square is seeing people start to get burnt out on doing the same stuff again and again but they REFUSE to change up the formula.

So, why do I not recommend XIV? Despite my hours and the love I have for the story?

Square has been given years of grace and love by a dedicated community only to continue to refuse to innovate and uplift the game past what it has been for years. The cracks in the foundation of the game have just become easier to see now that the story is poor and doesn’t cover it up.

Is it because they’re scared of changing things? Is it because they think they just don’t need to? I don’t know at this point, but FFXIV has a massive problem, and that problem is that they actively refuse to innovate a 10+ year old MMO with dated systems, mechanics, and combat.

Used to play some time ago and want to get back into it with friends. Interface, support, changing password, password loopholes, hard-linking user IDs to Steam are the devil. The people who made this game and design their support want to sacrifice you to the devil. This is the absolute worst and anyone who works for this game and the people who design this support should be ashamed. Shame on them. Shame on them when they lay down to sleep. Shame on them when they wake up.

This game is perfect for my autistic brain. easy to get super sucked into the details and has an amazing storyline. its like 20 games in one but all interconnected and lore heavy. It can be overwhelming if you try everything at once but if you take it slow then this is a game you'll be able to play for the rest of your life.

after playing this game for quite a while I have yet to enjoy the convoluted mess of a story and find the characters to range from boring to annoying. I have not finished the main story but my friends keep telling my I'm almost there. I feel like I am being gas lit and refuse to spend more money.

"It gets good, trust me!! You just have to keep pushing through the boring MSQ! It will pick up! Trust me bro!!!"
Dude, stop. I went all-in, tried my absolute hardest to get through this, and with 300 hours under my belt, I still have nothing to show for it.
This is the most bog-standard RPG experience I have ever played. There's no build diversity, no skill rotation variation, the dungeons feel more like CHECKLISTS than anything else, The devs are firmly against client-side mods, and the combat is so incredibly dated, stale, and uninspired. Everything about this game's core gameplay feels like a complete afterthought, and the story does not even come close to making up for it. How do you continue to justify this??

The game is like any other MMO yes, it has its differences though. After all, it is square enix, and they deliver.

New players are drowned under quests, but the lore/story is really good and interesting. The graphics are what they are, nothing to complain about. Gears/outfits for classes and races not too bad, I would let the race ones be usable by others though.

The glamour thing is a little hard to understand, I need to look at a guide on the side myself and a friend of mine doesn't understand it very good as well. There is always people to help you with a dungeon too, it doesn't take forever for parties to form and I like that.

Leveling would be super long if we didn't move to another server with double XP though, they should make it a bit less complex on that side (Since it's not different from any other questing mmo) but at the same time, it's not that painful (you can skip most of the cut scenes).

I recommend this game, it's nice and me & some friends are enjoying it (I had a big apprehension about Final Fantasy before I tried this one.) We'll see, but after 80+ hours played, I can at least say it's fun!

Almost 7,500 hours later… it's time to say goodbye.

I've loved Final Fantasy XIV for years—met some of my closest friends, spent an ungodly amount of money, and sunk thousands of hours into it. So, of course, I will recommend it, but this will largely be a review of why the game has lost me now. Endwalker was an incredible high point, a perfect send-off to a decade-long journey, and I don't regret a second of it. The storytelling in Endwalker was some of the best I’ve ever experienced in an MMO. The depth of the characters, especially the Ascians, was phenomenal—complex, heartfelt, and deeply resonant. It tackled existential themes in a way that hit even harder during the height of COVID, making it feel personal and cathartic. The emotional weight of that expansion, the way it brought together years of storylines and character growth—it was peak FFXIV. It’s the kind of storytelling that sticks with you and I will always be grateful to have experienced it.

But after that? I just couldn’t get into Dawntrail. I don’t think it was ever meant to live up to Endwalker—how could it? But after everything we’ve been through as the Warrior of Light, the supposed Hero of Eorzea, Dawntrail just didn’t hit right for me. The lack of engaging rewards and compelling content made it feel like we were just treading water rather than embarking on a new, exciting chapter. This expansion just felt... empty. No real stakes, no gripping narrative weight, and nothing pulling me forward. I wanted to love it, I really did—but it just didn’t have the same spark.

And honestly, the cracks have been showing for a while. The game has a bad habit of making content obsolete—grindy, fun content like Eureka, Bozja, and Deep Dungeons are basically ghost towns because there’s no reason to go back. Why can’t we get relevant rewards from these? Why is the only viable way to progress locked behind daily roulettes and the same dungeon grind? ESO figured this out ages ago—FFXIV could, too. Give players more relevant cross-activity rewards for their time, and appropriate EXPERIENCE. Why doesn't Eureka help you level alts?? Why can't they throw content restricted rewards (like old Savage Raid gear or special outfits) AND tomestones in the deep dungeons or instance areas like Bozja where we can hang out and grind mindlessly for them. It's an easy way to keep veteran players entertained since we've done everything else and are SO tired of roulette leveling, while also keeping older content relevant.

Then there’s the glamours. I loved this game for the roleplay, the customization, the endless fashion game. But lately? Recolors of old outfits, uninspired designs—it lost its shine. And don’t even get me started on housing. Player housing was supposed to be a thriving community space, but in reality? Neighborhoods are full of people who log in once a month just to pay their “rent” and keep their plot/decor/submarines from being wasted—which was me for two years. That’s not a housing system, that’s a hostage situation. Why can’t we just have instanced housing, where everyone can have a home and still have ways to visit other players' homes through a searchable system? Instead, we’re stuck with an artificial scarcity model where housing isn’t about creativity or community—it’s about keeping a subscription active so you don’t lose your investment. That’s a terrible system, and it’s long overdue for a fix.

*edited because I forgot to comment on this too*
One of the other big frustrations I’ve had, especially as a long-time player, is getting new friends into the game. If you’ve been playing for years and unlocked everything, good luck getting your friends to the endgame with you let alone on the same server, thanks to congestion and character creation restrictions. I had a bunch of new friends who wanted to play, but the process of getting them to where I was? Painful. Everything is locked behind hours of mandatory story quests, and a lot of them are fetch quests that just aren’t fun to grind through. Imagine telling someone, yeah, you can come play with me! But first, go complete hundreds of quests, read through cutscenes you may or may not care about, and grind solo for dozens of hours before we can even do something together OR spend 100 bucks on the game and the story boost and have no idea what you're doing. Some MMOs let you jump right in and experience content together—FFXIV gates it behind an endless solo journey in between dungeon unlocks. So that was a deciding factor for a lot of friends, including my partner, who simply didn’t want to grind through a story just to play with me. And honestly, I don’t blame them, and by now the game system just isn't new player friendly in contrast with MMO's like WoW or ESO.

So yeah, it’s bittersweet, but after nearly 10 years, I’m letting my sub lapse. I still recommend FFXIV—it’s been a phenomenal journey—but I can’t pretend the magic is still there. Maybe one day it will be again, but I don't have my hopes up.

Best MMORPG game story line that I've played! I get so excited once I get off of work to play. FFXIV has become one of my comfy games to play. My imagination take a hold and its like I'm in the game! If you're thinking about playing a MMORPG, trust me; try FFXIV out, it won't disappoint, unless your not into adventuring around and doing quests and slaying mystical creatures, then it might not be for you, but still if vibrant calming vibes is your thing, i'd still play test it a little, whats it going to hurt!

Started the game on Dec 13th 2024, with over a month of daily playing and grinding I've started post story for shadowbringers and got play with most of the class, not the base game ones as they require level 30. I think the story is really good and even more disliked stories like Stormblood were actually really good. Looking forward to finishing the rest of the story by the end of Feb and hopefully won't be to far behind with starting endgame content.

Very Early on in the game, I would say that this is a super fun MMORPG. I've never really played ones that are this in-depth, which was super intimidating.

There's a lot of info to digest, but the questline helps you along nearly seamlessly, and you wont find yourself too often googling "what do I do here?" etc.

The storyline is meh, but all in all I'm having a good time.

This is legit one of my favourite game in the series and im really happy i could experience the story without spoilers.

Shadowbringers and endwalker are one of my favourite stories ever and i wish i could play them for the first time again

Gameplay, its an mmo, everyone is friendly and it slowly feeds you info and dosent feel overwhelming.

Unlike destiny, i dont feel presured or fomo to play the game too, i know that the content will stay even if i dont play it for some time

You only need a single character to play every job (also known as classes) in the game, all one need do is swap their weapon/armor and you're good to go. It's encouraged to level multiple jobs at the same time, but play what looks fun or cool to you. I recommend choosing a DPS and a healer or a DPS and a tank, depending on what your play style is. There's no meta to follow in the early levels of the game - it's likely there is in the later levels of the game but I haven't personally arrived there yet. Character races don't mean much aside from fashion, which you'll learn is a large part of the game and equally as entertaining.

Perhaps the most confusing part is which license to get. There's licenses for each console, a license for Steam, and then a license through Square Enix. None of them stack with each other (meaning if you buy a PlayStation license, you cannot play the game on Steam or the Square Enix client), which can be frustrating. Make sure you pick the platform you want to play on carefully.

The community is very supportive of new players and are more tolerant of those that are learning the game than other MMO communities I've interacted with in the past. Gameplay is similar to other MMOs that you're familiar with (WoW, SWtOR) but is different enough that it feels unique.

It can be played with a controller or mouse & keyboard, depending on what feels comfortable to you. I know some that have started with mouse & keyboard but have migrated over to controllers. Both layouts are fully customizable and are designed very well. Your HUD can also be completely customized, allowing you to see the information you want to see and hide what you don't use, which is very nice.

All in all, the learning curve can feel a little sharp, but once you get the hang of it, it's a very fun game with lots to do outside of the traditional "level up, run dungeons, get better gear" loop. There's a little something for everyone in this game.

There's too much to say about FFXIV to put in a single review. It's the best MMO I've ever played, and one of my all time favorite games.

Im not a Final Fantasy fan and don't even interact with the community much. The gameplay loop is fantastic enough that I still got 3k hours (and counting) out of the game.

Id highly recommend it for anyone thats a fan of challenging, grind-heavy content. If you want my personal recommendation you should do crafting and gathering some time. Theres no other game that does it like this one.

Review written as of patch 7.1 (Jan 2025):

Not currently recommended and not recommended on steam due to steam authentication. As the game continues to bleed players CS III continue to double down. Sadly out of touch and filled to the brim with technical issues and bugs.
As if that were not enough they have now started threatening legal action against members of the community instead of not exposing information client side.

I certainly have concerns about where my subscription fee goes and in Dawntrail I question this more and more.
While Naoki Yoshida remains in place as Director & Producer of Final Fantasy XIV and is willing to threaten software engineers: avoid.

I've played since A Realm Reborn closed beta in 2013, I fell in love with the game, I started savage raiding in Heavens Ward and loved it more, I loved everything but the story ins Stormblood and I believe that is the best expansion. I love Shadowbringers story, but I do not agree or like the combat or content decisions for a vast majority of it, the problems were compounded and made worse in Endwalker, and Dawntrail broke the camels back narrativey, and contentwise. The design of fights are the best they've ever been but content it to far apart, the story is boring and even worse than Endwalker which is astonishing as that was 2 expansion stories smashed together. There is a lot of promise witht this expansion but I do not see any fruits being dropped any time soon.

There is promise of the next expansion bringing class identity back and maybe fixing this games combat, the problem is not only that but it went from being an MMO to being a instanced based game where no one talks to each other unless you have an FC or static or join a party at a house.

There needs to be a return of some kind of open world content where people can mingle and chat at their own leisure, if they really want to stay with faster paced overly and artificially difficult fights with body checks, they need to fix their servers and the 1 second delay, add dodges like white mage and dancers dashes with charges and gap closer's to ever melee, rework their character creator as its was behind every other single player and MMO character creator when it came out 12 years ago, have a real casual to mid-core goal and grind to reach with an ACTUAL relic grind and not a spare tomestone dump, make it so people don't just sit at the endgame vendor town, Limsa and their houses and have reason to interact with other people and make it a better MMO, and not be a single player game with MMO features.

I do NOT hate the game, i love it and that's why I will criticize it, give my thoughts as it is not in a good state and it is no longer engaging for me, I love all kinds of content from comfy farming on my island, to savage and ultimate raiding, and everything in-between like extremes, deep dungeons and exploration content which is my favorite thing to do BTW.

Can’t get the Steam version to run on Steam Deck. Just says I’m playing on the wrong platform or haven’t payed for an active subscription. I’ve done everything correctly and been troubleshooting for six hours now.
The non-Steam version works great.
Honestly the Steam Deck verification should be set to unsupported for now.
Extremely exhausted and disappointed.