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As Final Fantasy 14's Yoshi-P hopes upcoming patches 'show more of what makes Wuk Lamat so great,' patch 7.1 makes a start by redubbing one of Dawntail's most memed-upon scenes
Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail expansion concludes with a climactic battle against Sphene, but the voice acting and the overall story received criticism from fans. The development team has announced changes to the dialog and plans to explore Wuk Lamat's character more deeply in future content, all while addressing the abuse thrown at the English voice actor for the character.
The climatic battle of Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail expansion has got some new voice work, which follows comments from producer and director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida that the team hopes to "show more of what makes Wuk Lamat so great" as the abuse thrown at the English VA behind the lead "breaks his heart."
If you log into the MMO today, you'll find Final Fantasy 14's 7.1 patch waiting for you. The highlights are a few more hours of story content, the debut of the Final Fantasy 11 crossover raid, and much more. What fans are noticing, though, is that some dialog has been spruced up in the expansion's final encounter.
If you haven't completed Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail expansion, here's your spoiler warning for the rest of this post.
Still here? Grand. Final Fantasy 14's Dawntrail expansion concludes with one big fight against the big bad Sphene. There are mechanics to learn, a boss to hit, and eventually, you'll get a cutscene where Wuk Lamat joins the fun. Unfortunately, the delivery of her dialog didn't quite land for fans of the MMO, which wouldn't be as much of an issue if the expansion's overall story itself did. Alas, it did not. As our own Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail review lays out, the tale has pacing issues and Wuk Lamat doesn't get the best showing.
It's something Yoshida has since commented on himself. Speaking to Checkpoint Gaming, Yoshi-P says he expected some of the feedback and that the team is taking notes on comments regarding pacing. When it comes to Wuk Lamat, Yoshida says she's a complex character that the team could've done better with.
"We accept that feedback," he said. "I feel a little sorry that we weren't able to properly depict her. We may have been able to make her more straightforward, so we're pushing her in the forefront as this character. But again, we're going to be reflecting that learning into [content patch 7.1] and onward, we're hoping that we can show more of what makes Wuk Lamat so great, and I'm hoping that we can regain from there."
Reading Yoshida's comments earlier, I expected we'd see more of Wuk Lamat in the story content going forward, though another go at older dialog was something I hadn't thought of. Still, as a Wuk Lamat enjoyer myself, I hope the battle against Sphene will now resonate with more fans a little better than it once did.
It also bears repeating that criticism of Wuk Lamat in Dawntrail is messy. As Yoshida says himself, some of the abuse directed at the protagonist's English VA is less about Dawntrail and more about how she chooses to identify. Following the expansion's release, Sena Bryer, a trans woman, came forward to say she and her family suffered abuse, including threats and more.
"There were comments about how we are too accepting of diversity – some people seem to be disapproving of that," he said. "I'm afraid one of our staff members received very negative comments and it almost felt like a personal attack, which breaks my heart, because she worked really hard and these criticisms were not constructive at all."
Final Fantasy 14's 7.1 patch – Crossroads, to give it its glitzier name – is out now.