E3: MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV Announced

So much attention has been given to Final Fantasy XIII, that its MMORPG sister, Final Fantasy XIV has been a bit overshadowed. In an E3 interview,Hiromichi Tanaka and Nobuaki Komoto announced that both games would be coming out next year.

From the same team that brought you Final Fantasy XI, FF XIV will be an MMORPG, available both for PS3 and PC, and possibly XBox 360 (though this is not certain yet). It will ba available in the same languages as the older MMO:Japanese, English, French and German. The game will be different from FF XI , so there will be no options of importing your old character (unforfunately? Though according to IGN, the team is currently working on allowing players to transfer their characters' names from the old game). However, the team promises a new story that the players will "fall in love" with.

Final Fantasy 14 will be set in the new world of Eorzea, where you will encounter new races and monsters, as well as some reworked ones from FF XI. Something extra interesting was revealed in the interview - leveling will not be based on experience points (although the development team is still quiet about how all this will work). The team is also being secretive about weapons, and mysterious - they say to look at the logo (pictured below) for hints and secret meanings about the way the game will work. According to the IGN interview, the concept is that of a whee "of adventurers that has their weapon in front of them and an exposed backside -- which leaves each adventurer to rely heavily on their comrades and their friends." There is definitely something more to this logo, though. Hmm.

In Final Fantasy 11, Nebou Uematsu only did a few tracks. In this game, however, he did them all. So we can be sure to look forward to an amazing musical as well as graphic experience. Final Fantasy XIV is geared towards all sorts of players: you can work together or alone, stay on for a long time or a few minutes.

The team also revealed a trailer in E3. I'm not sure how much - if any - of this footage is gameplay, but the graphics looks amazing (of course). I can't wait to see what the rest of the game looks like. Final Fantasy 14 will follow Final Fantasy 13 (which is coming out in Spring of 2010). Plans for a beta are still being finalized, but the beta will be longer than that for the older MMO (that means, more than 4 months?).