Open Beta for Final Fantasy XIV Arrives on September 1

Developer and publisher Square Enix has officially announced that Final Fantasy XIV will be entering the open beta test phase at 2 GMT on September 1, allowing all those interesting in seeing what the new MMO has to offer to register an account and jump right in.

Final Fantasy XIV is set to take place on the continent of Eorzea, with some other areas of Hydaelyn also included, and players will be able to enjoy a mix of science fiction elements and fantasy themes.

A Tweet coming from the official account for the new Final Fantasy title reads, “The FINAL FANTASY XIV Open Beta Test begins on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 2:00 (GMT)! We hope to see everyone participate!”

A similar message has also been released offering the same date and hour for North America.

Those players who are coming in from the closed beta stage of the game will be able to transfer their character and gamers who are interested in the open beta can download a pretty hefty client, with the latest patch weighting in at about 1.2 GB of hard drive space.

Final Fantasy XIV will be based on skill development rather than experience points and levels and will encourage players who are enjoying Final Fantasy XI to transfer their characters.

The official launch date for the PC version of Final Fantasy XIV is set to arrive worldwide on September 30, with those who get the Collector's Edition having an extra week before that to enjoy the game and develop their characters.

Final Fantasy XIV is also planned to arrive on the PlayStation 3 home console from Sony during March 2011 but the beta stage on that platform has been delayed because of the huge amount of RAM memory the game needs.

There were suggestions that the new Final Fantasy MMO might also arrive on the Xbox 360 but development is now stalled because of how Microsoft controls the Xbox Live service.

Here's a full trailer for the new Final Fantasy based MMO: