There's really nothing negative I can say about the temporarily offline Final Fantasy XIV MMORPG—at least, there's nothing I can say that wasn't already said by the game's own director, Naoki Yoshida.
FFXIV was not well received , and Yoshida blamed an over reliance on the framework of the earlier, more-successful Final Fantasy XI . “We thought that even though FFXIV was released in the state it was, we could fix it with constant updates,” he told PCG in February . “We didn't have the heart, the spirit or the passion to challenge the market... Square Enix itself needs to change.”
The only solution was to literally blast FFXIV with meteors , start again and regenerate as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn . Any FFXIV players who jump back in with the new version have access to their old characters, which were frozen when the previous incarnation went offline.
J udging by the mass of newly released screenshots, the new game will, at the very least, be much prettier. Check out the rolling vistas, barren outposts and choice sunsets of the reborn realm below.
The Realm Reborn is currently in beta testing and should be released later this year.
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