Square Enix has confirmed that the Final Fantasy XI Add-on, Chain of Promathia, has passed all internal testing and obtained the "Gold Master" status. The development team is working on a version update that will become available a week before the Add-on's release to the world market. The version update is expected to be large as it will come in the form of many patches that can be downloaded seperately. The Add-on is expected to release in Japan on September 16, 2004 with the release of the PC version of FFXI in Europe. Chain of Promathia will be released in North America a few days after on September 21, 2004.

Some new details on the costs related to Final Fantasy XI in Europe have been released. The game will approx. cost gamers 50 EUR and will come on seven CDs. The monthly price will still be kept $12.95 USD (approx. 10.74 EUR) so as to keep both North American and European gamers happy on the fact that their payments are relatively the same. In related news, Square Enix will be publishing FFXI in Europe but will get some distribution help from the folks at UbiSoft who are also releasing Star Ocean 3 in Europe this January (01.10.04).