It’s taken over a decade, but Final Fantasy XIV is finally coming to Xbox in 2024. Square Enix announced on February 2 that a beta test for the Xbox Series version of the game will start on February 21 and can be accessed by players who are new to the MMO. However, the blog post announcing the beta test also contained some surprising news. For the Xbox version of the game, players will need to have a Game Pass subscription in addition to paying the subscription fee for the game itself.
The announcement can be spotted in the middle of Square Enix’s blog post in the “How to Participate” section. It reveals that while the Free Trial version of the game (including the beta) will not require a Game Pass subscription, “the full Xbox Series X|S version will require an Xbox Game Pass (Core or Ultimate) plan to play.” This is an unusual move for FF14, which only requires a game subscription to play on PlayStation and PC. An Entry subscription for FF14 costs $12.99 a month. Game Pass Core, the cheapest tier, runs $9.99 a month while Ultimate will cost you $16.99 a month. That means if you aren’t on the Free Trial of FF14, a month of playing the MMO on Xbox will cost you roughly $23.
That price can fluctuate if players opt for a longer-term subscription for Game Pass or FF14, but no matter what Xbox players will have to pay two fees for one game. Xbox players who are intrigued by FF14 and have never dipped their toes into Eorzea can test the waters for free by taking part in the open beta test starting on Wednesday February 21 at 3 a.m. EST before deciding if the game is worth the high cost to play regularly.
