When A Realm Reborn was released in 2013, the rebirth of Final Fantasy 14 began its first chapter under the guidance of producer Naoki Yoshida. For the next eight years, Final Fantasy 14 would see a resurgence in popularity that remains to this day, on PC and on consoles.
A Realm Reborn was released on the PS3 that same day, being one of the first major cross-platform releases years before it became a staple feature. This allowed PS3 and PC players to play together as well as migrate their progress from console to PC and vice-versa. As the years progressed, the console versions of Final Fantasy 14 continued to be a valid option for console players to experience the highly-successful MMO. After many months of confirmation, the next upgrade for patient console players on the PS5 is just around the corner.
At the end of the Announcement Showcase for Final Fantasy 14, Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda arrived to make a special announcement involving the future of Final Fantasy 14. The trailer that followed showed gameplay footage of Final Fantasy 14 captured from the PS5. Featuring a high-resolution GUI, 4K capability, and faster load times in-between zones, these qualities of life changes help address some of the issues console players had for many years. The Open Beta of the PS5 version of Final Fantasy 14 was also announced, slated for an April 13th release date.
The announcement trailer came after a two-hour-long presentation announcing Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker, the newest expansion for the decade-long MMO. Naoki Yoshida gave further details about the PS5 release, stating that there will be two main modes for PS5 players to choose from. The 4K display resolution will provide a significant improvement in quality while the 2K display resolution will be an option to maintain a steady framerate. This is similar to the PS4 version of Final Fantasy 14, which offered a PS4 Pro option to take advantage of the capabilities that the PS4 Pro had over the base model PS4.
In the past, support for the previous PS3 generation was ceased in order to focus on optimizing the current generation as much as possible. At the current moment, there are no details involving the future of the PS4's version of Final Fantasy 14. Those who have the PS4 version of Final Fantasy 14 and wish to upgrade to the PS5 version can do so for free, providing they have an active online subscription and the game's license itself.
Humorously, following the trailer announcement, Matsuda announced that the release date of the PS5 open beta would coincide with the same day as "the newest patch." It's highly suspected that "the newest patch" will be the long-awaited patch 5.5, however, no further announcement involving the latest patch was made at the time. The release date for the patch was confirmed later on in the following live letter.
Final Fantasy 15 is currently available now on PS4 and PC, with the PS5 open beta releasing on April 13th.