If there's a single place almost every Final Fantasy XIV player hates with the whole of his being is the forest of Black Shroud, with its maze-like corridors full of aggressive monsters that could oneshot a level 50 just by looking at him weird.

Luckily, A Realm Reborn is coming to the rescue with a fully redesigned world, and it's not random that most of the footage we saw so far is relative to that area of Eorzea, as it's what really shows that things have changed a lot.

Today Square Enix released a new video from the Alpha of the game, walking us through the new Black Shroud, and boy, is it beautiful. Not only the mazes disappeared, but the trees are a sight to behold, as they wave in the wind and cast dynamic shadows on the ground (thing that was sorely missing in the previous game).

You can enjoy it below, and if you missed Final Fantasy XIV, but want to check out A Realm Reborn, you may want to give a look to the new episode of my The Story So Far column. It'll help you catch up.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/asqskpLYwrI