It has become something of a meme that Final Fantasy XIV and its first expansion, Heavensward, are free to play. While later expansions and higher-level content require you to pay, Square Enix's excellent MMORPG allows you to easily play for over 100 hours while experiencing two complete story arcs without paying a single penny. What's more: it's very easy to do it.

However, you will have to face some limitations and may end up spending money before it's all over. Square Enix is offering this free trial because, after all, they hope it will generate new subscribers. But since FFXIV is a great game and you really can play two arcs for free, there is little reason not to at least give it a try.

Downloading the Final Fantasy XIV free trial client is very easy, but varies somewhat depending on whether you're playing on PC, Mac, PS4, or PS5.

For PC or Mac, go to the Final Fantasy XIV free trial website and click "Register Now." You will be taken to a page where you can create a Square Enix account and download the required software.

For PS4, simply visit the Final Fantasy XIV Free Trial PSN page, download and install the game; for PS5, also add the "PS5 Upgrade Edition" content. Both can access the PlayStation Store from a web browser.

The only thing to note here is that if you have previously played FFXIV using a Square Enix account, you will need to create a new account to take advantage of the free trial. This is not difficult, as all you need to do is use a new email address and a different username. However, if you have previously used the free trial, you will need to pay a monthly subscription fee or create a new character with a new account.

This step is also fairly easy, but may take a little longer than expected. Once Final Fantasy XIV is installed, you will need to either launch the installer on PC/Mac or wait for the installation to begin on PS4/PS5. But don't be fooled by the relatively short wait. The game has been on the market for quite some time and needs to be heavily patched after the initial installation.

No special tips here. All you need to do is something else for an hour or two until the game is up to date.

Once the game is installed, you can get started right away. You will have to choose a server, pick a class, design a character, etc., but the game itself will guide you through this process nicely. Likewise, the game is extremely story-driven (especially by MMO standards), so the game tells you exactly how to advance the story and explore the world. If you've played an online game within the past 20 years, you'll feel right at home after just a quest or two.

However, while the free trial version of FFXIV gives you access to most of what you get in the paid version, there are still some areas where you face limitations. First of all, once a character reaches level 60, he or she cannot gain any more experience, which is enough to play the full game as well as the Heavensward expansion; the Stormblood and Shadowbringers expansions are off-limits, and the Endwalker expansion is also off-limits.

There is also a small list of restrictions. Not all microtransactions in the game are available, you can only create 8 characters, 1 character per server, you can only collect 300,000 gil (in-game currency) at most, you cannot communicate personally with other players unless you are invited to a group You cannot communicate personally with other players unless you are invited to a group, you cannot send letters to other players, you cannot create or join a guild, you cannot join a party unless you are running a dungeon, you cannot join a PvP team, you cannot use the official FFXIV forums or the companion app. companion apps are not available.

A full list of restrictions can be found on the Square Enix website, but make no mistake: some of these are very inconvenient. If you have friends who have been playing "FFXIV" for a while, teaming up with them is more difficult than it needs to be, since you can barely communicate with them in-game. Furthermore, you will reach the gil cap before you reach level 60 and lose a lot of currency.

Still, what you don't get is relatively easy to handle compared to what you can get for free. In fact, you can go from level 1 to level 60 and experience two complete story arcs without paying. If you like the game, you'll probably pay a hefty monthly fee ($13-15) and dozens of dollars for the various expansions. But given that FFXIV is arguably one of Square Enix's best games in years, it seems like a fair trade-off.