Are you ready to give Final Fantasy XIV another shot? Good, because it's almost ready for relaunch.
During the latest livestream, Square Enix Producer Naoki Yoshida shared a ton of information including the latest roadmap for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. To kick-off the event, a live demonstration of the dungeon Tam-Tara Deepcroft was shown as well as over 1,000 characters on-screen at once without framerate lag or server crashing.
While the gameplay demonstration was solid, it was the beta information that caught the most attention during the presentation. We now know that the PC beta will begin mid-February and will last for 2-4 weeks depending on how much testing Square Enix sees fit. Following that, the PlayStation 3 beta test will commence in late March or early April and will last 1-3 weeks. Finally, the game is expected to release in either May or June.
As far as the goals of the betas go, here's what Square Enix has listed as its primary focus:
- Level progression rebalancing.
- Battle system rebalancing.
- Crafting/gathering systems rebalancing.
- User interface refinement.
- Bug reporting and fixing.
- Version 1.0 character data import testing.
- Server stress testing.
Each of the beta phases will have more than 5 World to play on with the majority of content unlocked and all races playable. Speaking of which, the first image of Male Mithra was shown during the livestream. See below:
The future of Square Enix is riding on this relaunch and thankfully the new management team has used great communication with fans and even polls to help design the completely overhauled version of the disastrous Final Fantasy XIV. For both our sake and Final Fantasy all we can do is hope that this redesign is enough to make the game worth playing.
