Final Fantasy XI (Preview)
by RageOnALeash

Final Fantasy XI will a very big step for RPGs; It will be online-only. This will be a formidable obstacle for Square, having never done this sort of thing before, however, considering Square's many great acheivements in the past, this game should be just as good as any other Final Fantasy, if not better.

Rumor has it that the online play in Japan will be difficult to correctly establish. This may cause some problems in America as well, and it is expected that FFXI will be delayed in Japan.

Word also has it that Coca-Cola will be sponsoring the ad-campaign for Final Fantasy XI. They have sponsored FF games VII-IX, and plan to sponsor Final Fantasy X as well.

It has been confirmed that a total of 2000+ playable charachters¹ will be in Final Fantasy XI, each with their own goals that form one big storyline. Graphical symbols, like those in Phantasy Star Online, will be included to aid in overcoming the language differences in the chat interface.

The game will be directed by Hiromichi Tanaka (Chrono Cross) and Koichii Ishii (Sieken Densetsu and Saga Frontier). Hinorobu Sakaguchi's (director of many FF games) job will be to create and manage the online world in which numerous players will communicate, while still maintaining adventure and excitement. It will be released for PC and PS2 simultaneously.

Here is a statement by Sakaguchi on FFXI:

"At least two thousand individual characters will be controlled by a similar number of humans. Players will be able to communicate in the virtual world and that alone is almost a drama in itself. You may meet characters that can become friends for life or who can betray you. But because it is a Final Fantasy game, we will be incorporating a story too. Most PC online games today do not have a set story but leaves most up to the players themselves. FFXI will be different in that respect."

Final Fantasy XI is expected for a Japanese release around Q4 2001. No American release date has been disclosed. Visit this page often for more information on FFXI as it draws near!

¹By using Skaguchi's speech and the charachter parties from previous FF games, we can assume that their will be about 3 charachters controlled by a human, or about 650 players on one online game.

Source: RPGamer, FFonline, and IGN

Screenshots

Images obtained from RPGamer.