With Final Fantasy XIV patch 7.25, Occult Crescent has brought out Dawntrail's full potential

4 years ago, in May 2021, Zadnor was added to Final Fantasy XIV with the arrival of patch 5.55. This was the last time the game saw a new Field Operations or "Exploration Zone" content - until now. While Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers all received post-launch updates that included such zones to help bolster what each expansion offered at the endgame, Endwalker lacked such a zone. Ask any devoted XIV player, and they'll all tell you the same thing; that the game really suffered from the lack of one. To say that Occult Crescent has been hotly anticipated would be an understatement.

If you started playing Final Fantasy XIV in the last several years, there's a distinct chance that you don't know what a "Field Operation" is. Put simply, while XIV is very obviously a "theme park" style MMORPG, Field Operations are instanced zones that offer a gameplay style closer to a "sandbox" MMO, like Final Fantasy XI. Progression isn't tied to Item Level to the same extent as the rest of the game; there's a separate leveling curve, gear progression relies more on earning and augmenting gear with special attributes in the specific Field Operation, and usually there's an extra layer of actions exclusive to these zones. While the original version of Diadem is now considered the first of its kind of content in XIV, Eureka and Bozja are what the current playerbase would be most familiar with.

For Occult Crescent, this manifests as Knowledge Level and Phantom Jobs. As of the time of this writing, by completing Fates, CEs and defeating regular mobs in the new zone will grant Knowledge which can increase your Knowledge Level; while Fates and CEs don't scale off of Knowledge, regular mobs do. At the start of the zone simply exploring the map to unlock the Aetheryte Shards and find survey points for the zone's log is a dangerous affair. Knowledge Level itself doesn't impact your stats, but rather your scaling against enemies - if you're the same level as an enemy, scaling will be the same as in the regular game. But if you're Knowledge Level 1 and go against a Level 10 enemy, you'll be instantly killed with a single auto-attack.

On its own, this sort of scaling makes Occult Crescent's current map - the South Horn - feel radically different from standard areas in the game. Outside of A Realm Reborn zones, players have never really had to worry too much about enemies in zones being vastly different power levels, and requiring extra discretion while exploring. Even at the current endgame, players have to respect regular mobs; if you're in a group chain-pulling Level 28 mobs, tanks and healers have to pay attention, as any mistake can be fatal. If you fall in battle and aren't revived by another player, you'll eat a penalty which can even de-level your character.

Now, on its face, most of this is identical to Bozja. There's one key difference, though; in Bozja, players could use the content to level their regular jobs from 71 to 80. Occult Crescent requires players enter on a level 100 job, and instead beyond Knowledge Level players will be grinding out new Phantom Jobs exclusive to the Field Operation.

Upon starting Occult Crescent, players are given a host of Phantom Jobs, which offer a number of additional actions you can utilize, and useful traits that are useful both in the zone itself as well as the optional 48-player raid, the Forked Tower: Blood. Some of these abilities are especially fascinating - Oracle is a favorite of mine, with how players are given timed prompts to use their cooldowns, and if they fail to activate any ability within the short timeframe they'll be greatly punished with a DoT that will kill you in 2 or 3 ticks, depending on your job. Beyond Thief's Steal ability offering players a greater currency payout from chain-pulling mobs, they can unlock doors within the Forked Tower; Geomancer doesn't just offer an especially useful buff for Tanks, but also can float players, allowing them to not only dodge quake-based attacks (some of which are common in certain CEs) but also allow dodging specific traps - once again - in the Forked Tower. Besides the initial slate of jobs, players unlock more either via random drops from specific CEs or by purchasing them with Silver or Gold currency dropped by Fates/CEs or chain-pulling mobs, respectively.

Now, I have to make something clear. I haven't even attempted the Forked Tower: Blood yet. Part of that is I want to ensure I have a full set of equipment for the zone first, the other is I want to have mastered 5 separate Phantom Jobs. Upon mastering a job, you gain a permanent buff to your damage output and healing capabilities anywhere within the Occult Crescent, which is of course very useful over time. The main reason I haven't done so yet is much simpler, though; it feels completely infeasible to do so without coordinating things outside of the game.

I'll specify - when there are enough characters who can access the Forked Tower within an instance, occasionally the South Horn's weather will be bathed in red, and the tower itself can be seen as a faint image in the background of the North-East section of the map. During this weather condition, Knowledge Level 20 players can go to the center of the map to interact with a building and offer Ciphers. If 16 players offer one, the Forked Tower will activate and up to 48 players will be teleported to the instance, with those who have offered Ciphers prioritized if there are more than 48 players who could tackle the Tower in the zone.

On paper, this isn't a problem. Where the issues arise is with how short the duration of this weather pattern is. If the majority of players are in a lengthy CE when the weather spawns, there's every chance that it will have dissipated by the time players have completed it. Now, in a few months most players will have accomplished all they need to with CEs, and as such will be chain-pulling mobs - an activity that is much more easily disbanded on a dime. Players can't exit a CE until completion, while you can very easily abandon a chain once you've defeated any mobs you've pulled.

I fully intend to at least have stepped foot in the Forked Tower before Summer Game Fest, but time is already running out if I want to experience it without having my hand held through the whole endeavor. While I was able to do the 24-player Chaotic Raid with a full group of friends, wrangling double that number is an even more herculean task. To make matters worst, since Occult Crescent instances are randomly assigned, trying to get all of your party members into the instance can be a pain. This was a similar issue with Eureka, but at least over time it has become easier as the content has lost popularity. Especially right now, you can't say the same about Occult Crescent.

While I have other issues with Occult Crescent - making it such that many previously rare rewards from Eureka and Bozja can be readily found in random coffers in the South Horn was a massive, massive mistake - well and truly besides the teething issues with Forked Tower, they all feel like nitpicks. I see and understand the complaints that there's no truly casual version of the encounter for non-hardcore raiders to tackle, but what little I've heard about the encounters in Forked Tower through the grapevine have me greatly excited to experience it for myself in the near future.

As someone who greatly enjoyed Bozja on-content, Occult Crescent is the sort of grind I've been looking forward to returning to for years. I've spent the last several nights in Discord VCs with friends having a blast, and I foresee that continuing in the months and years to come. It's still early days, but warts and all I'm confident in calling Occult Crescent a resounding success, much to the chagrin of my growing backlog of 2025 game releases. Much as I expected, patch 7.2 has started to bring out Dawntrail's full potential, and I couldn't be happier.