'Now I Barely Meet the Minimum'; Gamers Complain About Visual Update in Popular MMO
Improved visuals in Final Fantasy XIV will entail an increase in the game's minimum requirements. Some fans don't like this.
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Saying that Final Fantasy XIV is popular would be quite an understatement. The title did not have an easy launch, but over time - after a solid refinement - the game turned out to be the biggest commericial success in the history of the series, and after the debut of the Endwalker DLC it was even necessary to temporarily suspend the sales, as the servers could not accommodate such a large number of players.
The aforementioned FF game is constantly being developed, and we recently reported on the announcement of a new DLC, called Dawntrail, which introduces a lot of changes. One of them will be improved visuals, but not everyone likes this fact.
Final Fantasy XIV will choke on older PCs
Dawntrail will introduce a new land, increase the maximum level from 90 to 100, add new missions and enemies, and improve graphics. The latter new feature is problematic for those who have long played Final Fantasy XIV on older computers with, let's face it, rather poor specs.
The new minimum requirements for 1280x720 resolution are as follows:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-6700
- Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 480 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or better
- RAM: 8 GB
- Operating system: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Disk space: 140 GB SSD
While these are not particularly exorbitant, it does not change the fact that people who have previously played FFXIV on minimum settings, which their weak hardware allowed for, will be forced to upgrade it or buy a new PC. For comparison, we present current minimum specs from the game's card on Steam:
- Processor: Intel Core i5 2.4 GHz or higher
- Graphics card: AMD Radeon R7 260X / Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 or better
- RAM: 4 GB
- Operating System: Windows 10/11 64-bit
- Disk space: 80 GB
Gamers express dissatisfaction
The voice of dissatisfaction of some players rang out clearly on Reddit.
"And darn it, now I barely meet the minimum requirements. Will have to do a hardware upgrade," writes TheXIIILightning
"The current recommended requirements will become the minimum," points out Devil-Hunter-Jax
"Wow, my GPU will only meet the minimum requirements. That's depressing," concludes Kearmo
The problem was also addressed by the game's producer, Naoki Yoshida, who announced that Square Enix does not want to force anyone to upgrade their computers to the highest specs, but buying slightly better hardware will also allow for playing other games.
Fortunately, those whose PCs will not meet the minimum requirements still have plenty of time to buy new components, as the visual update will enter the game with the addition of Dawntrail, which will not debut until the summer of 2024.. Graphic comparison of the old and new FFXIV is available below.
