FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that invites you to explore the realm of Eorzea with friends from around the world.
Form a party and adventure with a multitude of players from across the globe. Forge friendships, mount chocobos, and board airships as you and your companions create your own unique stories in Eorzea.

Set out alone or enlist the aid of friends as you undertake epic quests, battle familiar FINAL FANTASY monsters, and acquire unique abilities and equipment. All the classic elements from the series that you have come to know and love are waiting!
Embark on the adventure of a lifetime to help reforge the fate of Eorzea!


STORY
The history of Eorzea has been marked by a cycle of prosperous "Astral" and disastrous "Umbral" eras.
Now the land stands poised to enter another age of decline, a period known as the Seventh Umbral Era. On the eastern border, the Garlean Empire masses its troops for invasion, while the native beast tribes summon their deities, the otherworldly primals.

The threats facing Eorzea will not easily be overcome.

• All the hallmarks of the FINAL FANTASY franchise, including genre-leading graphics and high-definition real-time cutscenes that advance the game’s rich storyline. Incredible new graphics engine that delivers a high level of detail and quality on both the PlayStation®3 and Windows PC platforms
• A flexible class system that allows players to change to any of the eighteen different classes on the fly simply by changing their equipped weapon or tool
• Breathtaking musical score by renowned FINAL FANTASY series composer Nobuo Uematsu
• Cross platform play on Playstation 3 and Windows PC and Robust gameplay features—such as Free Companies, story-driven player–vs-player content, and primal summoning—to bring players together 

The original release of Final Fantasy XIV began development under the codename Rapture in 2005.The game was officially announced in 2009 and developed using the Crystal Tools engine, which had previously been used for Final Fantasy XIII. This version was directed by Nobuaki Komoto and produced by Hiromichi Tanaka, who was also serving as the producer of Final Fantasy XI at the time. Akihiko Yoshida was the art director and Nobuo Uematsu composed the soundtrack for the retail launch. Alpha testing ran from April to June 2010 and beta testing ran from July to August. An open beta was conducted in early September, the two weeks before release. The game spent 3 months in beta, less than the 4 months previously announced as the minimum testing period. News sources expressed concern that the game was not in launch condition, with "critical bugs" present throughout beta. The game premiered on September 22, 2010 to near universal negative reception. After two extensions to the initial free trial period, Square Enix President Yoichi Wada issued a formal apology to players and fans in December 2010. In the letter, he announced a dramatic overhaul of the development team as well as the suspension of monthly fees for the game until further notice. Naoki Yoshida took over the producer and director roles from Tanaka and Komoto, among other sweeping changes. The upcoming PlayStation 3 version was also indefinitely delayed.
In attempting to improve Final Fantasy XIV, Yoshida quickly discovered a number of key tasks. First and foremost, he had to restore trust in the player base while bringing the original release up to a playable quality. To address this, Yoshida began writing "Letters from the Producer" which would discuss design direction, upcoming changes, player feedback, and increase transparency in the development process. However, outdated and cumbersome programming choices in the game code prevented the more radical changes necessary to improve the game. Thus, planning for a brand new game built from scratch began in January 2011 and development began in earnest by April, with work on a new game engine and server structure. Meanwhile, the team's efforts on the original release first began to come to fruition with patch 1.18 in July 2011, which included major changes to the battle system, implementation of auto-attack and instanced dungeons, removal of the controversial "fatigue" system, and the introduction of the Grand Company storyline which would supersede the original main scenario questline. Subsequent patches would further refine the gameplay as well as set the stage for the Seventh Umbral Era events. On the anniversary of the game's release, Wada claimed that the initial launch of Final Fantasy XIV had "greatly damaged" the Final Fantasy brand. Thus, Wada and Yoshida announced the brand new version of Final Fantasy XIV in October 2011, dubbed "Version 2.0", which had been in development since January, along with a tentative roadmap for future progress for both PC and PlayStation 3. Current players would be provided copies of the new PC client at launch, free of charge, and their character data and progress would be transferred as well. Along with the roadmap, they announced that monthly fees would be instated in order to offset the cost of redevelopment^. Billing for the original release began in January 2012. To encourage players to stay with the game while paying subscription fees, Yoshida revealed the "Legacy Campaign" which rewarded players who paid for at least three months of service with permanently reduced monthly payments, an exclusive in-game chocobo mount, and their names featured in the credits of Version 2.0. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012, Square Enix debuted "Agni's Philosophy", a tech demo for their new Luminous game engine. Though members of the Final Fantasy XIV development team worked on Luminous, Yoshida admitted that both Luminous and Crystal Tools were optimized for offline games and could not handle an online environment with hundreds of on-screen character models. Though Version 2.0 uses a "completely different engine", he called the Luminous engine and the 2.0 engine "siblings" due similarities in structure.
In July 2012, Square Enix revealed that Version 2.0's official title would be Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. As development for A Realm Reborn ramped up, Yoshida made the decision to shut down the servers for the original release on November 11, 2012. This date served as the "grand finale" for the old game, culminating in a cinematic trailer for A Realm Reborn called "End of an Era".The alpha test for A Realm Reborn began shortly after the finale and ended in late December 2012. During this period, Yoichi Wada revealed that the development of A Realm Reborn was a cause of delay for many Square-Enix titles being developed at the time. Yoshida published an updated roadmap for the beta test through launch, indicating four phases of beta beginning in mid-February 2013. The PlayStation 3 beta will start in phase three. He claimed that the team is "adamant the game not be released until it is ready" and that launching too early "would be like at the level of destroying the company". In May 2013, Square Enix revealed the release date for the game, along with details about pre-order bonuses and the collector's edition.