Last week, Square Enix revealed the benchmark trailer for Final Fantasy 14’s upcoming expansion, Dawntrail. While Dawntrail’s showcase of new in-game areas, enemies, and combat garnered positive feedback online, the lifeless eyes of its character creator left a lot to be desired, fans said. In response to the negative feedback, Director Naoki Yoshida has promised a graphical update that will fix its character creator’s soulless eyes.
In a recent blog post, Yoshida detailed the technical components that led to Dawntrail’s slightly off-putting character creation system. Chief among them is that Dawntrail’s character creation system is a decade old and is based on the release version of A Realm Reborn.
“Although it used the same processes as the actual game, certain aspects (such as weather) were combined to create special conditions exclusive to character creation,” Yoshida said. “This was done to present the texture resolutions and shaders at their best based on the quality standards at the time, which included the PlayStation 3 version. Furthermore, its light sources take advantage of backlighting which, in this case, proved detrimental for showcasing the upcoming graphical update.”
Yoshida went on to apologize, saying Dawntrail’s character creation environment should have been updated but was “overlooked” in favor of developing the upcoming expansion and tuning a graphical update for the game. In the wake of Dawntrail’s negative feedback, Yoshida said the team is expediting a rework on environments and lighting sources that, once completed, should “greatly improve the situation.”
Three major factors Dawntrail’s graphical rework aims to address are:
- “Lifeless” eyes due to a lack of highlights in the pupils
- Facial contours appearing flattened due to incorrect lighting conditions caused by backlighting
- A lack of gloss or excessive appearance of gloss due to character creation-exclusive weather conditions (i.e. the use of thunderclouds)
"As we require some time to investigate the issues and reconstruct the benchmark environment, the timing and further details of the replacement will be announced later,” Yoshida continued. “My apologies for asking you to bear with us as we address the points of concern. The team and I will continue doing our best for the graphical update and Dawntrail's release, and we would appreciate your continued support!"
Dawntrail launches on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on July 2, with early access kicking starting on June 28 for those who pre-order. This should give players plenty of time to give Elden Ring’s upcoming DLC a whirl before diving back into Square Enix’s fantasy MMO.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
