Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn players are eagerly awaiting for the release of the new benchmark that is scheduled to happen on August the 1st, especially because it’ll include a character creation utility that will allow new players to actually create and customize their characters and save their appearance, in order to load and use it when the game will go in open beta and then hit the shelves.

This is reserved for those that will play on PC, as the benchmark is PC only (your PS3 obviously doesn’t need to be benchmarked), causing many future PS3 players to ask for a character creation demo dedicated to their platform.

Unfortunately this isn’t going to happen, as explained by Community Manager Devin Casadey on the closed beta forums:

The character creation aspect of the second benchmark is something that only accompanies the benchmark and we have no plans to release a PS3 character creation demo.
PS3 users will be able to create characters when when Beta phase 4 begins and we appreciate your patience until then.

Luckily the open beta is probably quite close (word on the street says the August the 8th or the 9th due to the date of the upcoming Letter from the Producer Live, but don’t take it as gold), so PS3 players won’t have to wait too long in order to create their Eorzean alter-egos.

Casadey also specified that the benchmark will allow only to create e a character’s appearance, saving it locally, but it won’t actually create the character on the servers, so it won’t allow players to reserve their names.

Also as a side note, you will only be able to create your character’s appearance with the new benchmark and things like setting and reserving names won’t be possible, so please don’t be worried about others taking your name ahead of time.

There you have it, straight from the lion’s mouth. We’ll keep you updated as soon as the benchmark hits. Unfortunately we’ll have no news about that for PS3 players, but the wait shouldn’t be too long.