Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Reviews

Shadowbringers is the highest point of Final Fantasy XIV to date and it brings some much needed changes, two exciting new classes and an unforgettable story that rivals even the very best Final Fantasy stories. An excellent music score elevates the package higher and with the promise of a 24 man raid series based on Nier Automata, there’s a lot more to look forward to,

While the story's over-reliance on genre tropes keeps it from being truly groundbreaking, it's still among the best in MMOs, as is the new content. Shadowbringers is a great experience that could've been an amazing one.

As players attempt to overcome not one but two catastrophes, Final Fantasy XIV takes them to a brand new world. With Shadowbringers offering the best experience so far, The First seems an appropriate name for that world in more ways than one.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers is one of the best MMO expansions I’ve ever played. The story is incredibly good, the new jobs are ridiculously good fun, and the mechanical updates work well. The word of the First is a beautiful treat, and music is top-notch. If this sounds like your jam, you should absolutely play it.

Almost perfect if not for the nitty-gritty. If it’s quite there but not enough to push the boundaries, it’s still an awesome game.

Several years ago, I had a brief stint with Final Fantasy XI. I had a group of friends to play with, and despite my relative unease with MMOs, I had a good time for a while. But it was an unwieldy sort of game, and I eventually moved on to other things. When Final Fantasy XIV came out, I was always curious, but never felt like I could invest the time, especially without my old pals. Enter Shadowbringers. By some twist of fate, and this whole job thing, I ended up plonking myself down in front of this game, this massive game with over five years of context and history, and giving it a whirl. I’m hooked. Shadowbringers is the latest expansion to Final Fantasy XIV, and its new tools, features and storytelling make it a tremendous experience for veteran players and newbies alike.

Shadowbringers weaves such a beautiful tale that it's tough not to gush about each and every strand of it individually. There might be some awkward job balancing changes here and there, but the fumbles are never enough to take away from how magnificent this expansion is as a whole. I arrived a stranger in Norvrandt, but I left as one of their own as even the simplest quests drew me in and made me truly care about the story being told there. Shadowbringers has only further solidified XIV's status as one of the greatest Final Fantasy games ever made.

I’m going to start this review of Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion, Shadowbringers, with a complaint and what is probably the biggest issue with this expansion, and FFXIV in general. It’s an issue I don’t have a solution for, but hopefully, the development team can one day figure a way to solve this problem.

Shadowbringers has set quite a standard in quality of content delivered and how Yoshi P and his team respond positively to community feedback for further updates. While there are some flaws to be addressed still, many of these are due to how ambitious in nature Shadowbringers is in every category. With an outline of future content roll-outs that includes a Nier: Automata YoRHa series of raids, more notoriously difficult Savage difficulty trials, housing updates, and an ever-expanding story, there’s even more to look forward to down the road with Shadowbringers.