Last night at The Game Awards, you probably saw Final Fantasy XIV clean up in two categories, Best Ongoing Game and Best Community Support. The MMO has grown a fiercely loyal fanbase, and with the new release of the Endwalker expansion, it’s treading into some new territory.
As far as I can tell, Final Fantasy Endwalker boasts the highest score on Metacritic among users in 2021, and one of the highest in the all-time list, though it may decline as more reviews roll in.
Right now, the PC version of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker has a 9.5/10 user score on the site. Here’s how that compares to other big hits this year:
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Endwalker METACRITIC
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker – 9.5 (9.2 on PS5, 9.7 on PS4)
It Takes Two – 9.2
Monster Hunter Rise – 9.0
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy – 8.8
Inscryption – 8.8
Metroid Dread – 8.7
Tales of Arise – 8.7
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart – 8.6
Forza Horizon 5 – 8.6
Resident Evil Village – 8.5
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade – 8.4
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut – 8.2
Microsoft Flight Simulator – 8.1
Halo Infinite – 7.6
Returnal – 7.3
Deathloop – 6.3
Psychonauts 2 – 5.9
This is also higher than Shadowbringers, the other beloved Final Fantasy XIV expansion, sitting at a 9.1 on PC. If we’re talking all-time high scores, it’s actually #12 on the list beating out The Witcher 3 with a 9.4, Half-Life Alyx with a 9.2 and both Last of Us games with a 9.2. Granted, those games have many thousands more reviews counted, and the PC version of Endwalker only has a few hundred in, but still, it’s significant.
The narrative is clear, however, Endwalker is a massive hit for Final Fantasy XIV fans, which does reflect the sentiment I’ve seen on social media among players since its release. The launch of the game has caused a surge of the game’s playercount, though after being in Steam’s top 10 for a bit, it has mostly been resting inside the top 20. The vast bulk of its players play on the native launcher, however.
Final Fantasy XIV continues to be one of the industry’s most impressive turnaround stories, an utter disaster that was reworked into what we’re seeing here, one of the most beloved MMOs in history creating must-have expansions over time that are still satisfying the playerbase after all these years. As World of Warcraft has dramatically declined, Final Fantasy XIV is new the gold standard for MMOs, and everyone should be looking to its example in terms of what it’s been able to accomplish with both its turnaround and ongoing content releases.
what do you mean PS5 exclusive 
