Final Fantasy XIV Sales and Free Trial Return

Final Fantasy XIV's award winning free trial has returned, and director Yoshida gives a look at what's to come for the game's future.

Final Fantasy XIV Sales and Free Trial Return

Have you heard of the Critically Acclaimed MMO Final Fantasy 14? If not, it might just be time to give the game a try.

After the culmination of the first Arc of the MMO’s story with the release of Endwalker, Square Enix has had to pause sales of the award winning MMO Final Fantasy 14, as new players had been causing server congestion that led to hour long queues to even log in to the game. But now, months after the pause on sales, there is good news for those who want to give the game a try, and for fans of the other Final Fantasy titles.

The free trial of Final Fantasy XIV has resumed after sales were suspended due to congestion

The extended free trial for Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn and Heavensward is back on the market as of February 22nd, so if you’ve been waiting for a time to get into Final Fantasy, now is an excellent opportunity. As any FF14 fan will be able to tell you, the extended free trial has no limitations on playtime, and consists of the base game, A Realm Reborn, and the game’s first expansion, Heavensward, both of which are award winning titles and provide players with over 50 hours of content (and even longer if you're completing side quests along the way!).

During a livestream, Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida gave several insights into their plans for the future of the MMO, including the games first visual update, which they have planned for patch 7.0. The preview provided shows that the update focuses on increasing resolution and improving the game’s shaders, while also improving textures. This graphical upgrade should help give the vibrantly written and designed world and characters the same vibrancy in their presentation, while still staying true to the visual style of Final Fantasy.

The game's current models (Left) compared with the upcoming graphics update (Right)

Another important announcement made should be of interest to anyone who has an interest in final fantasy games, but isn’t such a fan of the massively multiplayer aspect of a MMO. Over the course of patch 6.1 to patch 6.5, the developers will undergo the process of integrating the Trust system into the dungeons of A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood, to match with Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The Trust System allows a player to take on a dungeon with a group of NPC companions, similar to a grand company squadron. The addition of the system to all of the games main story quests would completely eliminate the need to group up with others to complete the story. Lore lovers will never feel the need to speed through a cutscene, and those less plot minded among us will have a space to practice new dungeons or classes. Not to mention, the poor DPS mains get an alternative to waiting for their queue to pop.