The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG

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Check out our explainer on this meme, What Is The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG, And Have You Heard Of It? The Video Game Ad-Mocking Meme, Explained

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About

The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG, also known as Have You Heard Of The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG and the FF14 Copypasta, is an advertising copypasta that promotes the free trial of the award-winning MMORPG series Final Fantasy XIV. It is later used as a copypasta meme to promote and ask about the Final Fantasy XIV free trial.

Origin

The earliest origin of the copypasta originated around March 4th, 2021, during the release of the Final Fantasy XIV Free Trial website.^[3] Final Fantasy XIV's YouTube channel release three advertising videos of a woman encouraging people to play the free trial of Final Fantasy XIV.

Fans have later used The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG as an advertising copypasta meme that quotes:

Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime.

Final Fantasy XIV's English Twitter^[2] page tweeted about The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG later on April 17th, 2021.^[1]

Have you tried the expanded Free Trial of our critically acclaimed MMORPG #FFXIV?You can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for FREE with no restrictions on playtime! 😲https://t.co/TyO1aUnpxT pic.twitter.com/Dncfg7ldFM

— FINAL FANTASY XIV (@FF_XIV_EN) April 17, 2021

Spread

The copypasta later spread all around the internet, mostly on 4chan 's /v/, Twitter, Reddit, in public and also used to ask people gaming-related questions. It also became a prevalent reference in numerous meme formats and garnered notable media coverage.^[4]^[5]^[6]

On February 12th, 2021, Twitter^[7] user AnonyMooseXIV posted an I Wish All X a Very Y meme referencing the Critically Acclaimed MMORPG copypasta, accumulating nearly 1,400 likes and 900 retweets in two years (shown below).

On May 20th, 2021, HatashHyrunashi posted a word art version of the copypasta (shown below, left) to his Twitter,^[8] which received over 6,900 likes and over 3,100 retweets in over two years. On Reddit, an edit of the word art version of the copypasta was posted to the /r/ffxiv^[9] subreddit on December 16th, 2021, by Redditor Xane, in response to the servers being overwhelmed after the launch of the Endwalker expansion. The post received over 1,800 upvotes and 59 comments in roughly one year (shown below, right).

On July 28th, 2023, it was announced that the Final Fantasy XIV expansion Stormblood would also be added to the free trial in patch 6.5 along with a level cap increase to level 70. On July 29th, 2023, Twitter user HatashHyrunashi posted an updated word art version of the copypasta (shown below).^[10] The post received over 10,000 likes and over 5,000 retweets in less than one day.