Final Fantasy 14 Switch 2 officially confirmed for August after free 1-month trial to show us how the MMO runs on Nintendo's new handheld

Square Enix has finally revealed its brand-new Final Fantasy 14 expansion, Evercold, with plenty of exciting content to come – but something even bigger is dropping prior to 8.0, it turns out.

Those rumors of a Switch 2 version – you know, the ones reportedly teased by director Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida himself in the past – have turned out to be true. That’s right, during today’s big keynote showcase at Fan Fast 2026, Square Enix unveiled that it’s got a Switch 2 edition of Final Fantasy 14 cooking as work on Evercold presses on, and it’s set to launch this August. That’s a mere four months away from now.

Not only is it coming so soon, though, but it’s also going to be preceded by a free trial that lasts one month. Yep, that means we’ll all get to explore how Final Fantasy 14 runs on Nintendo’s new handheld system before we fully commit to it. It’s a pretty significant trial period, too, if you ask me… especially seeing as we’ll have to pay an extra subscription fee if we like it on Switch 2.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Fan Festival 2026 in Anaheim – Day 1 – YouTube

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Sadly, yes, Square Enix reports that it decided alongside Nintendo that another sub fee felt right for the Switch 2. As it stands now, if you have a subscription on PC, you can share it through to other consoles and play on them – which, you know, feels pretty fair, all things considered. It’ll be a different story on Nintendo’s platform, however.

We’ll have to pay another subscription – albeit one that’s 50% off, should we have an active sub elsewhere – but we won’t need to have a Nintendo Switch Online membership. I’m not too sure how I feel about that, as I do use that membership for pretty much every other Switch game I play, but I suppose it makes things a little better.

I’ll decide how I truly feel about it come the Final Fantasy 14 Switch 2 release late this summer, after I’ve explored every facet of the free trial version. Until then, I need to learn how to play Astrologian on controller.

Final Fantasy 14 is getting an Evangelion raid series, and shamelessly I’m even more excited for it than anything else in the MMO’s Evercold expansion