Final Fantasy XIV, Square-Enix's latest effort in the MMORPG genre, has been in a closed beta for the last few months. The launch date of September 30, 2010 is quickly approaching, so they announced today that the closed beta phase will be ending on August 25th (Wednesday), and an open beta will be starting in early September. Why is this significant, you ask? Because you practically had to give away your firstborn child to the RPG gods at Square-Enix to get into the closed beta. Opening that up means that just about anyone who wants to can try the game out in a beta format before it ships.

The title is very graphically intense, so perhaps you might want to try it out just to see if your rig can run it. Or, maybe you're not quite sure about your purchase yet because of some game mechanics questions. Needless to say, you should get the chance to "try before you buy" when the open beta phase begins.