Gaming's most generous free trial is about to get a whole lot better

pcgamer.com:

There was a time when Final Fantasy 14's free trial was not very generous. Back when I started playing in August 2014, it was a measly two-week tryout with a cap of level 20. That changed to a level 35 cap with no time restrictions soon after, and then three years ago we were treated to the endlessly memed trial that was the entirety of A Realm Reborn plus its first expansion Heavensward, up to level 60. That's already a good couple-hundred hours for absolutely free, but now that pot is about to get a hell of a lot sweeter.

As revealed during this weekend's Las Vegas Fan Festival, Final Fantasy 14's next patch will fold the game's second expansion, Stormblood, into the free trial. With that comes an increased free trial level cap of 70, plus the playable jobs that were added with the expansion: Red Mage and Samurai. 

That's… a hell of a lot of game for zero financial investment. It's easily somewhere around 200 to 300 hours just to plough through all the story, dungeons, and raids. Significantly less if you're skipping every cutscene, but I believe half of Final Fantasy 14's charm is in its occasionally stiff but ever-improving storyline and dialogue. You can easily squeeze even more hours for free by levelling all the available jobs up to level 70, if you're so inclined.

Stormblood isn't my favourite expansion of the series—it has the weakest story in my humble opinion—but it's home to some of the best dungeons and raids in the entire game. If you're into Final Fantasy 12 then you'll love its 24-player Ivalice alliance raids, and dungeons really begin to have a better cohesive vision from this expansion onwards. Steven gave the expansion of 92 in his Stormblood review, so it's still a very worthwhile time.

Even if