A revamped FF14 Dawntrail benchmark is in the works

Including changes to the character creator

Square Enix/GLHF

If you were one of many MMO game fans who found themselves less than happy with the Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail benchmark, Square Enix has good news for you. There's an improved version on the way, Square Enix announced in a Lodestone post.

The first benchmark, included a character creator that showcased the FF14 7.0 update’s graphics overhaul, and for various reasons – including players tinkering with special effects in the creator – many people walked away with the idea that their Warrior of Light was forever changed beyond recognition.

That’s not the case, Square Enix says, though the company did acknowledge a few errors in the system that caused anomlaies such as Miqo’te characters having their fangs removed. Most of the issues stemmed from lighting effects in the character creator itself, which Square Enix says remained unchanged from the game’s original launch version that was built for the PS3.

Most of the negative effects people noticed in the character creator vanished when they loaded the actual benchmark and saw their characters in Dawntrail itself.

The new Dawntrail benchmark – which has no release date just yet – will address lighting issues in the character creator that made eyes seem lifeless and seemingly flattened facial contours, and it’ll fix a problem with gloss that showed up when players activated certain special effects in the creator.

The second set of fixes covers a few vaguely described “processing errors.” These errors range from high-resolution textures missing for entire races, mouth scaling problems, and neckline issues. That last one is literal. Some characters and races had seams where the necks didn’t quite meet the rest of the character’s body.

Make sure to continue –politely – logging any issues you encounter with the benchmark and creator on the FFXIV forums, as Square Enix is using valid feedback to improve the game in the lead-up to Dawntrail’s July 2024 launch.