Final Fantasy XI receives a major HD visual overhaul mod

Boy, I remember the good ole days of playing Final Fantasy XI on my PlayStation 2. I was one of those lucky guys that got to try out the closed beta where Square Enix would ship you the required hard drive with a copy of the game in a neat little box. For the time, the visuals were downright gorgeous - nothing quite looked as artistically expressive as Final Fantasy XI especially in the MMO space.

Fast forward 15 years, and it's certainly a game that could use a facelift. While we're still waiting on tangible news regarding the planned Final Fantasy XI remake with Nexon (outside of a confirmed last year that it's still happening), we will have to settle for the next best thing - a committed modding community that is both highly ambitious and probably a little crazy.

Created by user Amelila, this is a huge graphics overhaul mod that drastically improves Final Fantasy XI's textures that makes it able to compete with, let's say a game that came out in 2014. There are also optional HD bump maps which require a pretty powerful graphics card, so we'll take the author's word for it.

For those interested in checking out the overhaul mod that is 277MB in size for yourself, be sure to grab it over here (direct Google Drive download link). Don't think this is a one-off release, either; the mod will be kept updated with latest mods as they are released and will continue to be distributed free of charge.

Check out the release trailer below to see it all in action: