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| Mike Salbato |
A new look at many new zones, a key gameplay system, and why that Lalafell is wielding a Gunblade.
07.04.13 - 8:19 PM
With Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launching in late August and the closed beta ongoing, the company has been showing more and more of the game.
The best way to get a feel for the game's areas is the ongoing Tour of Eorzea videos, and today marked the third episode of the series. In it, you'll see plenty of zones, from floating cities, to desert, and much more:
(Also, you may want to see Tour 1 and Tour 2.)
Another series of videos that's been ongoing are the FFXIV Developers' Commentary overviews, each of which spends some time looking at one aspect of the game in-depth. Today's Commentary has Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida and Toshio Murouchi of the Community Team discussing the Duty Finder. The Duty Finder is Final Fantasy XIV's system for helping people find parties to join. It's 13 minutes long, so settle in and watch:
Many MMOs are no stranger to special events, and FFXIV won't be either. An upcoming crossover promotion with Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will see a quest line in which Lightning pays a visit to Eorzea. There's still much we don't know - it's believed this will be a limited-time quest, likely available in February for Lightning Returns' launch, but this isn't confirmed. There's also going to be a set of FFXIII-themed equipment available, though whether or not it's part of the Lightning event is uncertain. Here's an image showing FFXIV folks wielding many of XIII's cast's weapons, thanks to Nova Crystallis:
As you can see, Lightning's original outfit will be available for female characters, and if you look hard, you can see that Snow's outfit will be there for male characters. We'll hopefully have more details on this promotion in the near future. Some people are a little put-off by this, but considering Final Fantasy XIV already has references to other titles (there's more than one idea borrowed from FFVII), this kind of thing doesn't seem so far-fetched. Personally, I'd much rather see other Final Fantasy games in my Final Fantasy games than, well, this kind of thing.
Finally, we've overhauled our Final Fantasy XIV galleries. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn finally has its own gallery, though we're keeping the gallery for the original version as well. Now you don't have to dig through older screens just to see media for ARR.
So that's all for today! If you've registered for the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta, the next testing time begins tomorrow. Otherwise, the game is to be released on both PC and PlayStation 3 on August 27th.
