Square Enix Unveils a New Expansion for Final Fantasy XI

With a player base of over 400,000 players, an online game must be good. From using magic and melee skills to defeat monsters, from using the same skills to defeat your friends, Final Fantasy XI has it all. The game was created by Square Enix, formerly known as Squaresoft, about 5 years ago. After these five long years the development team is still strong in creating fresh content for their player base. One of the best ways to show your player base that you care is to create a new expansion pack, which is a disc you buy for an online game that loads new content into your hard drive for further fun in the game. Such new features in an expansion pack may include new items, jobs, environments, battle systems, enemies, and more. Square Enix's last expansion "The Treasures of Aht Urhgan" is only 70-80% completed and loaded into the player's systems as it is, but Square Enix, also well known as 'SE', seems to give players what they truly want - more.

The new expansion is titled "Wings of the Goddess". The theme is currently unclear at the moment, but it seems as of right now that the new expansion will deal with some sort of time. The time frame talked about is still shrouded in mystery as well. One of the lines associated with the the new expansion's adversing is "A tale once lost... is about to be retold...". The words 'told' and 'retold' seem to have some sort of emphasis, as the expansion could possibly include the new job "Time Mage", a job widely discussed on various Final Fantasy XI forums.

Some screen shots provided by Square Enix also show what seems to be already navigational areas, but with some added or modified terrain. We can assume that since the title says 'retold' in it, that these screen shots may be of the past in Vana`diel, and not actual "new" areas.

The navigation of time seems to intrigue many players, possibly due it's complexity, and how Square Enix is going to pull of a stunt such as time play. But Square Enix has done crazier things in their day. Some newer members wont remember, but at one point there was no person versus person games such as Ballista in Final Fantasy XI. Adding person versus person was a huge step for Square Enix to take, and it was also a risk, but it worked out incredibly well.

The new expansion is due to come out in Winter of 2007. Drastic changes such as job adjustments, the finishing of "The Treasures of Aht Urhgan", and many others things still are being worked on by Final Fantasy XI's development team. Stay tuned for more information on this incredible looking expansion.

Also, check out http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml to see a trailer of the new expansion pack as well.