Hands on with Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail’s new Viper and Pictomancer

Announced in July 2023, Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail was a step in a new direction for Square Enix’s behemoth of an MMORPG. With a near decade-long story coming to a close through the Endwalker expansion, Creative Studio III teased a new start to the never-ending journey of the Warrior of Light, this time promising players a “summer vacation” of sorts set on a continent in the midst of political turmoil as it chooses its new leader. And with the new expansion would come further adjustments to the game, alongside the inclusion of two new job classes and a complete graphics overhaul. Square Enix provided Polygon with the opportunity to dive into a slice of Dawntrail, which included a look at both the Viper and Pictomancer job classes and the chance to run through one of the new dungeons.

When I was present at Fan Fest 2023, I was enticed by the idea of a new job class, mostly because I had grown tired of the continuously gutted Summoner, the lack of engagement while playing Gunbreaker (or any tank), and the homogenization of most of the healing job classes. So I jumped at the chance to give Viper a whirl at this recent preview event. Having now played them, the Viper and Pictomancer remind me of the more experimental age of Final Fantasy 14 that arrived with the release of the Heavensward expansion — when the job classes were more interesting, and when Creative Studio III was still ironing out the wrinkles of A Realm Reborn.

These two new job classes are both refreshingly complex. On the surface, Viper seems akin to the Ninja with its dual blades and dexterous animations, but in practice, it’s a more involved version of the Reaper, which was introduced through Endwalker. The Viper is fast and fluid, with your attacks built on devastating sweeps of your dual blades or combining the blades into a polearm through special attacks and stances to rip and tear through enemies. You are constantly swapping between stances, applying debilitating debuffs to enemies, and ramping up your attack speed to cancel animations to deal as much damage as possible in short bursts of time. Like the Reaper, the Viper has a healthy selection of single-target and AoE attacks, which means you will be able to reliably build up your Vipersight and Serpent’s Ire gauge. Final Fantasy 14 has remained a game of building up your gauges to burst down enemies within very specific time windows, and Dawntrail doesn’t seem to stray from this path.

However, the Pictomancer does provide an additional bit of support in combat, outside of being a damage-focused job class, through buffs, which is honestly quite refreshing. Through the use of spells brought to life by the strokes of a multicolored paintbrush, the Pictomancer paints swatches of color hastily on a canvas to manifest a hammer or the wingbeats of a Moogle to damage enemies. As you continue to color the world with vibrant flecks of paint and pain, you will accumulate color on your palette in the forms of highly saturated colors or pastels. Filling your palette will grant you access to more powerful spells, such as Holy in White or Comet in Black, which you need to balance between channeling the abilities of more powerful creatures and objects through your illustrations. Overall, Pictomancer is a very complicated job class that provides that aforementioned team support in the form of the Starry Sky Motif skill, which augments a party’s offensive capabilities. Where it will stand when it comes to Savage Raids and other endgame content like Ultimates will be interesting.

Alongside the addition of the Pictomancer and Viper, Creative Studio III will implement changes and updates to various job classes as part of Dawntrail. This has included a shift in how Monk is played, alongside adjustments to Black Mage. What I noticed with jobs like White Mage and Gunbreaker was that skills such as Presence of Mind or Bloodfest now transform into an additional skill once used. Presence of Mind turned into Glare IV, and Bloodfest became the full Renzokuken combo from Final Fantasy 7, Lionheart finisher included. Job classes will certainly be getting more skills, as I noticed the White Mage does have a dash similar to Dancer, but this adjustment has at least prevented further button bloat for those playing with controllers. The user interface also indicates what skills will change upon being used more clearly, which means you won’t accidentally be putting two of the same skill on your hotbars anymore.

Image: Square Enix

Image: Square Enix

Image: Square Enix

But above all else, Final Fantasy 14 is a pretty game and perhaps one of the best-looking MMORPGs on the market. Dawntrail expands upon this not only through the texture update, which received a new benchmark after the initial one had seemingly gone awry, and through the lush environments of Tural. Creative Studio III was not shy in hiding its inspirations for this expansion, billing it as a “vacation” to the warmer climates of Eorzea’s version of Latin America. The dungeon of Ihuykatumu is full of vibrantly colored plants and other such creatures, even if it is just a trip down the Amazon River (in Final Fantasy form, of course), and the mountainous region where the Pelupelu are found is just as visually saturated. Tuliyollal, a large port city, is decorated with swaths of brightly colored cloth with intricate patterns, and houses are made out of a healthy mix of wood and stone.

When asked about obvious nods to Latin America in Dawntrail, producer Naoki Yoshida (also known as Yoshi-P) mentioned that the team had some consultation on what would appear in the expansion. This included input from the global team at Square Enix and members of the translation team. However, Creative Studio III did choose to reach out for further input regarding the representation of the cultures they would go on to depict in Dawntrail. Yoshida also mentioned that even with consultation, there is always a potential risk.

Image: Square Enix

“Of course our team is very cautious about taking risks, and they would advise, like, So this might be a little too risky, or You might want to avoid this thing, but we didn’t stop there. We tried to understand why they would consider it a risk, and figure out how to avoid any situation that could arise,” Yoshida said. “How do we understand, and how do we deepen our understanding so that people won’t take offense as to how we depict them and what they would interpret as offensive? We dug really deep into what is considered appropriate or inappropriate, even down to the textures that we used in wall patterns or even curvature for specific symbols. If that symbol was representative of something that a particular culture might find sacred, we don’t want to offend that. Sometimes we might do research and understand that meaning for ourselves.

“So we might make the decision that, OK, this is what that represents, this is what it symbolizes, and this is how we want to use it. Or if it’s too much of a risk and we don’t want it misinterpreted by our audience, we would instead try to figure out how to modify this to steer away from offensive content and make sure that we are symbolizing something similar, but be mindful of the culture that we are trying to depict. We don’t want to make this one-sided. It was a learning experience for sure. But at the same time, we didn’t want to let go of certain elements just because someone would seek a potential risk in it. I feel like the fruits of our labor are very clear, and that people will see what we have tried to do and appreciate it. We’re hoping that the different cultures represented are respected, and that it will be appreciated by the players as well.”

When asked about possible official support for Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico, given Dawntrail’s heavy dose of inspiration, Yoshida said he is aware of issues concerning latency for players in that region. He mentioned that having a physical data center for Latin America is “technically possible, and not that difficult of a task to do, so to speak,” but the lack of dedicated language support makes it more complicated. “We don’t have a dedicated Latin American language specialist,” Yoshida explained. “So we always have to rely on outsourcing for any translations of the Spanish and Portuguese language. And considering Final Fantasy 14 is a live service game, it needs constant support. Not having that dedicated person does create a bottleneck.” But he went on to mention that Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu is a strong supporter of more language support for other regions. “I myself traveled to Brazil last year,” Yoshida concluded. “I met many passionate players there, and there is a desire, for sure.”

This article is based on play of an in-development build of Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.