Today, Square Enix revealed a ton of updates for Final Fantasy XIV as it transitions to version 2.0 over the next year. Naoki Yoshida, who took over as director and producer earlier in the year, has been reworking the game and shared development updates here. While the team will be intregrating changes throughout the next year and will soon begin actually charging for the game again, version 2.0 is going to be a major reboot.

Some of the major changes will include the addition of a new job system to replace the somewhat obscure one that is currently in place. This system will introduce seven jobs that should look more familiar to Final Fantasy fans, though no specifics have been revealed about the jobs. The company did release concept art seen below. These jobs will continue to be revamped through the months leading up to 2.0, and the development team is planning to allow players to level these jobs through questing, not simply grinding. The character creation process will be expanded for version 2.0 as well, including the addition of Miqo'te males, Highland Hyur and Roegadyn females.

More concept art here.

The game's user interface is being completely redesigned for 2.0, including possible support for user created add-ons. Along with this will be changes to the game's battle system, including removal of the claiming system along with further balancing and support for large party content. The world map is also being redesigned so that areas are less repetitive and more dynamic. Not only will the world map look different, it will feature a brand new storyline in version 2.0 which will do away with the current Seventh Umbral Era plot, making it no longer available. There are many more changes coming down the line, many of which are detailed here (detailed outline) and here (general outline).

Current FFXIV (left), Concept Screen for Version 2.0 (right)

Those who were looking forward to playing this on PlayStation 3 will have to wait until the end of 2012, as the beta phase is planned for later in the year. The release of version 2.0 content will hit PCs around October 2012 as well, though the PlayStation 3 release will most likely be early into 2013. While these changes might seem like a long way off, considering the mess that Final Fantasy XIV has been for the past year, Square Enix is hoping that the reboot will be more welcoming to newcomers and loyal players alike. RPGamer will have more information about the upcoming changes in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more information.