Guide to Potentially Disturbing or Upsetting Content

From Final Fantasy XIV Online Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Extreme Caution icon.png Spoiler Warning : This article contains spoilers!

This is a role-playing game in which players assume the role of an adventurer exploring the fantastical world of Hydaelyn. Players travel across various lands, interact with characters, and engage in battle against humans and fantasy creatures (e.g., hyena-/jackal-like animals, demons, skeletons). Players use swords, spears, and magic spells to kill several opponents. Combat can be frenetic at times, accompanied by clashing sounds and brief yells. Cutscenes also depict instances of violence: an extended off-screen sequence in which a character is stabbed; a man shot off-screen while crawling away. Dark blood stains appear on the floors of one level. The game includes some suggestive/sexual material: female characters dressed in revealing outfits; camera angles that pan suggestively on bodies; women offering companionship to men in a coastal city; dialogue that states “[s]tay clear from them two. Gave me the crotch rot, they did!” Players occasionally encounter characters who consume alcohol (e.g., “Jussone more cup, littlemann! Hic!”). The word “sh*te” appears in dialogue.

ESRB Rating Summary

Introduction

Final Fantasy XIV contains several scenes that may be disturbing, upsetting, or frightening to some players, as well as scenes which may trigger phobias or medical issues (Motion sickness, photosensitivity, etc). This guide is intended to provide warning of what to expect and when to players who wish to be warned in advance, while trying to avoid spoiling more than is necessary to provide said information. This guide is a work in progress, so feel free to add more.

Please note that everyone is different; what disturbs one player may leave another unaffected. Many players will be able to view all scenes listed below with no significant distress. Players who are not particularly susceptible to being affected by dark, heavy themes, and who do not have medical issues such as photosensitivity or motion sickness, are advised to not read further, as some important plot points will inevitably be spoiled by necessity.

Final Fantasy XIV is rated as follows:

  • ESRB (North America): Teen 13+ (Language, Mild Blood, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence - This is for A Realm Reborn, the ESRB does not have an Endwalker-specific page.)
  • PEGI (Europe): 16 (Violence, Drugs)
  • USK (Germany): 12
  • CERO (Japan): C 15才以上対象 (No searchable database of ratings could be found)
  • ACB (Australia): M (Mature themes and violence, online interactivity)
  • TMW/CO (New Zealand): M (Stormblood - Violence), PG (A Realm Reborn and Heavensward - Violence & coarse language), no Shadowbringers or Endwalker specific ratings listed

A Realm Reborn

Level 16 dungeon Dungeon Sastasha: Sex Slavery

The second portion of the dungeon features several characters enslaved to the pirates in the dungeon. Some are Lalafell.

Level 34 main scenario quest in La Noscea and Thanalan Main Scenario QuestAll Good Things: Mass Murder

Several defenceless characters are massacred by gunshot and stabbing.

Level 50 dungeon Dungeon The Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard): Horror

The duty is set in a crypt where a dark ritual is in progress, as creepy music plays throughout. The final boss is a voidsent (demon), and upon defeating it, a character falls into a pit after candles light her robe on fire.

Level 50 feature quest Feature QuestCorpse Groom: Horror, Jump Scare

This is the quest that unlocks the above dungeon Dungeon The Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard). After completing it, a character sees a ghost (With a jump scare) and runs away screaming.

Heavensward

General Advisory: Heights

Many areas of the expansion take place at great heights, i.e. mountains, floating islands, tall buildings, and airships overlooking clouds or vast chasms below. This includes the main city, several zones, and several instanced dungeons, trials, and raids.

Level 57 main scenario quest in Ishgard Main Scenario QuestA Knight's Calling: Murder

An important character is killed with a magic bolt in a cutscene.

Level 60 patch 3.1 endgame main scenario quest: Main Scenario QuestAs Goes Light, So Goes Darkness: Child Endangerment, Attempted Murder

A minor is thrown from a tall building, but is rescued mid-fall.

Level 60 White Mage frame icon.png White Mage job quest Feature QuestHands of Healing: Racial Persecution

A character recounts crimes committed against her people because of their race.

Stormblood

General Advisory: War, Military Occupation, Oppression

Stormblood is set in regions that are under a brutal occupation by a foreign military power, with atrocities committed against the occupied population. The story is about the rebellion against the occupying power.

Level 60 main scenario quest in The Peaks Main Scenario QuestThe Black Wolf's Pups: Beating, Oppression

A helpless character is brutally beaten, and the player is unable to intervene.

Level 70 patch 4.3 endgame main scenario quest Main Scenario QuestFruits of Her Labor: Implied Sex Slavery, Murder

In a vision granted by the Echo, a character is implied to have been sold into sex slavery. Later, a character murders two other characters by stabbing.

Level 70 raid Raid Sigmascape V1.0: Motion Sickness

The entire encounter takes place on board a large moving vehicle, as the background scrolls by at high speed.

Shadowbringers

Level 70 main scenario quest in Amh Araeng Main Scenario QuestThe Time Left to Us: Body Horror

A character is transformed into a monster in a very graphic, disturbing, and painful way. The transformation was explicitly shown onscreen in all its horrific detail, but was later patched so that the camera cuts away from the transformation. The player must later hunt down and slay said monster in the level 71 dungeon Dungeon Holminster Switch.

Level 70 main scenario quest in Eulmore Main Scenario QuestEmergent Splendor: Self Harm

A character is shown with a bloody, slashed wrist as a knife lay across them on the floor. The scene is repeatedly shown throughout the cutscene.

Level 73 main scenario quest in Il Mheg Main Scenario QuestThe Lawless Ones: Jump Scare

The player witness a vision in which a character monologues before a dark background, with fake static and other effects similar to a horror movie. The scene includes jump scares that may startle the player and be particularly distressing to players with anxiety.

Level 80 alliance raid Alliance Raid The Tower at Paradigm's Breach: Photosensitive Seizures, Eyestrain, Motion Sickness

Several players have reported symptoms such as motion sickness, eyestrain, double vision, nausea, headaches, dizziness, vertigo, migraines, and vomiting from this raid, and a few have even reported seizures. The game has since been patched to mitigate these issues, but caution is still advised for vulnerable players. See the warning at the top of the linked page for the raid for more information.

One section has the players riding up an inclined lift, as the background scrolls by at high speed.

Endwalker

General Advisory: Existential Themes, Dark Story

The Endwalker main story campaign is all about the end of the world and has a very dark tone throughout. It touches heavily on the inevitability of suffering and death, and the meaning of life, especially in the second half of the campaign.

Level 83 main scenario quest in Garlemald Main Scenario QuestAlea Iacta Est: Suicide

A character commits suicide by gunshot. The act itself happens offscreen and is not shown to players, but the lead up shows the character loading a single bullet and pointing the gun at his head, before the game cuts to a different scene. It later cuts back to show a blood-splattered banner, the body, and the smoking gun.

Level 83 main scenario quest in Garlemald Main Scenario QuestIn from the Cold: Body Dysmorphia, Body Possession, Forced into Another Body

The player character's consciousness is forcibly implanted into the body of a dead Garlean soldier of indeterminate gender, while a major antagonist overtakes the player character's body. The solo duty that follows is protracted and limiting.

Level 83 dungeon Dungeon The Tower of Babil: Motion Sickness

The players ride an underground subway train, and later 2 elevators, as the background scrolls by at high speed. The players fight trash while the train is in motion, but not the elevators.

Level 85 main scenario quest in Radz-at-Han Main Scenario QuestBeyond the Depths of Despair: Body Horror, Violence

Several characters are transformed into monsters. One is transformed into a small monster, and is almost immediately crushed by a large one.

Level 85 main scenario quest in Thavnair Main Scenario QuestWarm Hearts, Rekindled Hopes: Violence, Infant Endangerment

A mother and her infant are attacked by a monster and thrown into a body of water. The player character is forced to dive in and rescue them, and finds that the infant survives but the mother was killed on impact.

Level 86 main scenario quest in Elpis Main Scenario QuestVerdict and Execution: Animal Euthanasia

An animal is deemed a threat to the ecosystem and has to be euthanized. The animal simply disappears into aether, so the scene is not graphic.

Level 87 main scenario quest in Elpis Main Scenario QuestWords without Sound: Horror, Jump Scare

The player is involuntarily connected to an entity's shared consciousness. The entity is experiencing pain and suffering and the connection is depicted through a jump scare. The player is shown as being affected by this suffering. The camera zooms in on the entity's face where it is bleeding a black substance from its eye sockets.

Level 87 main scenario quest in Elpis Main Scenario QuestThou Must Live, Die, and Know: Existential

The story touches on themes such as the purpose of life and the inevitability of suffering and death, particularly in cutscene that concludes your visit to Elpis.

Levels 89-90 main scenario quests in Ultima Thule: Existential

As with Main Scenario QuestThou Must Live, Die, and Know, the zone's storyline touches heavily on existential themes.

Level 90 feature quest Feature QuestWho Wards the Warders? in the Pandæmonium quest chain: Suicide

A character commits suicide by telekinetically impaling himself with a sword. The character then dissipates into aether.

Level 85 Fisher frame icon.png Fisher class quest Feature QuestThe Wandering Whale : Vomiting

A character in the Endwalker fishing quests suffers from severe aether sickness. While the vomiting is not shown on screen, it is described in significant detail.

Level 90 dungeon Dungeon Lapis Manalis: Motion Sickness

For the first segment of the dungeon, the players ride on the roof of a large land vehicle as the background passes by at high speed. This section is short, but requires fighting trash while the vehicle is in motion.

Dawntrail

Level 91 dungeon Dungeon Ihuykatumu: Motion Sickness

For the first segment of the dungeon (Before the first boss), the players ride on the deck of a river barge as the background passes by at high speed. This section requires fighting trash while the barge is in motion.