Release Date	Distributer	Publisher	Developer
2010	Sony	Sony	Square-Enix
Offline Players	Online players	Price	Anticipation
None	2-TBA	$TBA

Final Fantasy XIV looks fantastic.	Expect the game to have quite a few cut-scenes.

Is this an in-game screenshot? Quite possibly.

To so many people this was the surprise announcement of E3 2009. In the same year gamers will get their hands on Final Fantasy XIII, we will also be getting the next game in the series Final Fantasy XIV. While FFXIII will be a single player title, FFXIV will be an online game.

While a surprise announcement this game isn't a total unknown. Square-Enix had first announced in August 2005 that they were working on a new RPG, codenamed Rapture. It had always been widely rumoured the project would be a sequel to Final Fantasy XI - the first MMORPG from the company which released on PC and XBox 360, as well as PS2 in America. That game has, in the five years since the initial Japanese release, amassed 2 million gamers. Anything new from Square-Enix was bound to gernerate a lot of interest but in a coup for Sony this will be a PS3 exclusive for consoles.

Characters and enemies look great.

So we know nothing about the storyline or characters at this stage, and even the gameplay remains largely unknown. What we do know is that this game is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) which, for those not in the know, means there could literally be thousands of gamers in an online world all playing at once. Indeed Square-Enix have confirmed they are planning on running the same servers for PS3 and PC owners, with an option to connect to any server around the globe.

We don't know much about this game at all yet, except we do know the key staff. The Producer is Hiromichi Tanaka (Final Fantasy I, II, III, XI), Director is Nobuaki Komoto (Final Fantasy IX, XI), Art Director is Akihiko Yoshida (Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII), and Music by Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Series). It certainly seems that the key staff are in place to make this another brilliant game in the series.

More gorgeous Final Fantasy 14 images.

As you can see from the surrounding screenshots the visuals in this game really are astounding and this game uses Square-Enix's Crystal Tools development platform. For such a large open-world title Square-Enix are not taking any short cuts with this game. The landscape look epic with some brilliant locations (have a look at that waterfall!).

With a release slated for 2010 the release of the release of this game is so much closer then any gamers could have ever imagined, especially with Final Fantasy XIII due for release in Q'2 2010. We expect this will be released quite a few months later making this a late 2010 release. Either way as a PS3 console exclusive this is certain to be a big seller, and quite possibly a system seller as well. Sony, you have a big game here from Square-Enix, you better promote the crap out of this monster release even if you are't publishing and/or distributing it in all territories.

Check out the gorgeous waterfall...	What's going on here then?