An entirely new area of the Final Fantasy XI is progressing into the testing stages, Square Enix announced today. A new "limbo" or "other side of the world" realm will begin seven days of limited public beta testing in Japan on February 10.
Players can enroll for the test on the Japanese PlayOnline website starting today, but you won't get far if you don't live in Japan. The test is taking place at a specific location, Square Enix's "Real Vana'Diel" game cafe in Tokyo's Akihabara district. The cafe will be closed to the public, and used instead for a large-scale test of the area with members of the development team on hand to observe the game's performance.
Square Enix has released a few images of the new area, which show off a very different style of architecture and monster design compared to what we've seen in FFXI so far. Check those out, and look forward to more news on when this latest expansion will be opened to the public.
