Playing Final Fantasy XIV Just Got A Lot Easier

Square Enix is still trying to find ways to lure people into playing Final Fantasy XIV. Their newest attempt to bring on newcomers includes lifting one of the game's restrictions that may have prevented some people from enjoying the game.

According to Polygon, you can now play Final Fantasy XIV without having to pay a dime all the way up until level 35. That's right, there's no restriction on playing the game and it's essentially free-to-play up until level 35.

Previously, Square had it set up where gamers could only put in two week's worth of play time via a trial for Final Fantasy XIV. Once the two weeks were up, the trial would end and gamers would then have to put some money down in order to purchase a subscription.

At this point, the game is now based on how much you level as opposed to a fixed time. This is actually crazily fantastic news because the way that Final Fantasy works, it's actually possible to level up into different fields depending on what you want to focus on. There are crafting guilds and combat guilds, enabling gamers to profess in the field that they find most affable to their playing styles.

You could, technically, use the time to level up a bunch of different professions to get a feel for the game. And obviously, some of the professions in Final Fantasy XIV take a lot more time to level up than others.

It took me around two weeks in order to reach level 30, so give or take some time, the time restriction being lifted will probably put players at around the exact same amount of time to hit level 35. Of course, a lot of it depends on whether or not you join a guild, whether or not you play solo or party through the game, which location you choose to start in, and what quest routes you choose to pursue.

As some people mentioned in the comment section on the Polygon article, you can put about 100 hours into Final Fantasy XIV and still not reach level 35. It's an extremely massive game with a ton of different kinds of content and opportunities to pursue depending on how you choose to play.

The combat wasn't much to my liking, as it was still very much typical MMO-style Tab-targeting, but the crafting, supplying and exploration professions added a whole new element of intrigue to the game, as players could focus on things like botany or mining, both of which require venturing around the environment to find herbs or ore nodes. There's also jewelry making, and leather making, and blacksmithing and lots of other different professions as well. Final Fantasy XIV is also rife with mini-games to help mix up the way the game is played.

Level 35 as a restriction seems like giving an awful lot of the game away for free, but if it turns into higher subscription numbers for Square Enix's MMO, then I guess it's all good.

Following the time restriction being lifted, Square also has some new expansions inbound, including the new Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood update, which is due out this summer. So you might want to take the opportunity to use the free trial period to level-up and get good before the new content arrives.