https://gamerkick.com/d/final-fantasy-14-there-are-no-plans-to-make-it-free-to-play
In a new short interview with Eurogamer, director Naoki Yoshida revealed that Square Enix has no plans to make Final Fantasy 14 a free-to-play MMORPG,
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, which you'll soon be able to play with an even further expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn, Heavensward and the Stormblood expansions up to level SEVENTY for free with no restrictions on playtime?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a new short interview with Eurogamer, director Naoki Yoshida revealed that Square Enix has no plans to make Final Fantasy 14 a free-to-play MMORPG, although the free trial could expand further.
Practically everyone knows that you can play Final Fantasy 14 for free until you reach level 60 (and soon at level 70) with two expansions, but this does not mean that the entire title will become free.
“Since a huge amount of time and money has been invested in expansion packs, revenue from expansion sales is still very important to continue making additional content of this magnitude.
We would like to constantly aim for the best also from a commercial point of view to continue to create a lot of content to taste”.
In addition to this, Square Enix probably does not want to introduce in Final Fantasy 14 monetization systems often discussed and criticized present in other free-to-play MMORPGs such as Battle Pass, gacha and advertising, preferring instead to leave the game intact.
Final Fantasy 14 is available on PC, PS4 and PS5, while it will arrive in spring 2024 on Xbox Series.
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Which stinks for broke boys like me but is understandable....esp since we can't get rid of capitalistic greed in so many other industries where it'd help to be able to afford shiz like this again....
The top comment is a meme, but the free trial indeed is not time limited. It's kind of like a "free to play" version of the game.
Most of the limitations are purely social - can't send friend requests, party invites, or trades and similar. (There's a full list somewhere) But, you're still on the same servers, you can still use matchmaking, party finder, and paid accounts can send friend request and party invite to you.
What is there is going to be basically 100% of the story, side quests, and raids up to the level limit. And it will all be completable through the various matchmaking systems or NPC parties (where applicable).
It's just a mild bit harder than the regular game (since, as an MMO, it is a social game) - and much of the issues you can "solve" if you know someone that has a paid copy, or make friends in game. For the party invite specifically, I know I've seen requests go by occasionally for adding two free trials to a party - which the paid account can make and doesn't have to stay. In my free company (guild) there's a few random free trial players we've "adopted" and have in the chat linkshell, but who can't accept invite fully.
Source: I've played on both free trial to level 50 and paid to level 90.
Oh I know....part of what's not in that comment is I have played it on free but ended up paying until I couldn't bc life sucks. Was on the second expansion too but yea life has been weird....