Final Fantasy 14 on Switch 2: The Free Trial That Costs You 100 Gigabytes

The August release of Final Fantasy XIV on Switch 2 was one of those announcements that makes you pause mid-scroll. Not because it’s shocking—we’ve known Yoshi-P wanted it on Nintendo hardware for years—but because of the timing. Square Enix is coming in hot, with both the base game and the new Evercold expansion teased alongside the port. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to finally see what all the fuss is about, here it is. But there’s a catch that nobody’s really talking about in the headlines: the file size is going to be absolutely massive.

Let’s be direct: Final Fantasy XIV isn’t a small game on PC or console. The base install with all expansions to date hovers around 80–100 GB, and with Evercold presumably requiring another 10–20 GB, we’re looking at something that will eat up a significant chunk of the Switch 2’s internal storage—or demand a good microSD card. The free trial, famously, includes the base game (A Realm Reborn) and the first two expansions (Heavensward and Stormblood) up to level 70. That’s hundreds of hours of content, but it’s also tens of gigabytes. The “free trial” might as well be “the full game minus the latest expansion,” and it comes with a download commitment that rivals any triple-A single-player game.

This is where my inner archaeologist kicks in. I grabbed my GBA the other day—yes, I still have one—and looked at the cartridge for the original Final Fantasy. That game, the one that started it all, was stored on a 2-megabit ROM. That’s 0.25 megabytes. FFXIV on Switch 2 will probably be 100,000 times larger. The absurdity of that scale is the kind of thing that makes you appreciate just how far we’ve come, but also makes you wonder: at what point does a “trial” become a barrier to entry? You can’t just jump in after a quick download. You have to clear space, maybe delete a few other games, and then sit through a multi-hour download.

And yet, that commitment is part of what makes FFXIV special. You don’t casually start this game. It demands investment from the moment you hit “download.” The free trial is famously generous, but it’s also a slow burn. The first few hours are a tutorial-heavy slog through a world that’s still finding its footing (A Realm Reborn’s pacing is famously glacial). But if you stick with it, you unlock something rare: an MMO that respects your time, a community that’s genuinely helpful, and a story that rivals the best single-player Final Fantasies. The file size is a barrier, but it’s also a filter. The people who make it through are already committed.

This connects to something I noticed years ago when I first tried World of Warcraft on a friend’s computer. The original WoW installer came on four CD-ROMs. You had to sit through a 45-minute install before you could even create a character. That barrier was part of the ritual. It felt like you were earning entry. FFXIV on Switch 2 is the same idea, but digitized and ballooned to modern proportions. The download is your offering to the MMO gods. The free trial is the temple.

So who is this for? It’s for the Nintendo-only player who’s heard about “the best MMO” but never had a gaming PC or a PlayStation. It’s for the lapsed player who quit before Heavensward and wants to come back without paying a sub right away. It’s for the curious person who’s willing to clear 100 GB of space and trust that the payoff is worth it. The answer: it is.

But don’t pretend the file size isn’t a problem. Square Enix needs to be transparent about exactly how much space you’ll need, and maybe offer a segmented download—start with the base game, then stream the expansions as you unlock them. The Switch 2 has a fast SSD, but storage is still finite. If this port is going to succeed, it needs to respect that not everyone has a 1 TB card.

I’ll be downloading it on day one, clearing my library, and probably deleting a dozen screenshots of Tears of the Kingdom. That’s the price of admission. And honestly? For the chance to wander through Eorzea on a handheld, it’s a price I’m willing to pay.