While Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was a massive time commitment, dragging on for maybe a little too long, its expansion successors offered a more manageable and condensed story that’s told in the course of a few chapters. With the latest expansion,Dawntrail, expect more of the same with its length, as the formula remains mostly intact. Six dungeons spread out every two levels with trials at levels 93, 99 and 100. On top of that, there are six zones with two central hubs that offer different means of items and side quests.
The question still remains, though: just how long is Dawntrail? We’ve invested almost 100 hours into the expansion thus far, going through the story twice and partaking in the various side activities Square Enix throws at us. Once soaking everything in and another speeding through for an alt character in preparation for raid content later this month.
Taking Your Time
If you listen to all the voiced dialogue and read the majority of the massive amount of non-voiced dialogue, Dawntrail will take the average player around40 hoursto complete. A sizable chunk for an expansion, no doubt, especially when you consider that is purely the story itself, not taking into account any of the other side content, be it small or significant.
How to Obtain the Mica Suit in FFXIV: Dawntrail
Dress up as your favorite mascot squirrel in FFXIV: Dawntrail.
Rushing Through
If, for some reason, you just want to race through the story to get to the end game, the trek is much shorter. We ran this through on a second character just to see how fast we were able to get through the story and it still takes a little while. It’s more than most single-player games, coming in at just under10 hoursof playtime, with around half an hour of it being dedicated to queues from the six dungeons and three trials as a DPS.
Even though there is some lengthy backtracking in certain spots, the campaign is still a chunky piece of content that will last players some time. There’s an immense amount of content to get through, so don’t feel rushed to get through it, but instead enjoy the sights and adventures along the way to the end goal.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
The fifth expansion to the award winning MMORPG, Dawntrail takes the franchise into a whole new direction, hopefully kicking off another ten-year long adventure.
