Square Enix considered ending Final Fantasy 11 in 2024, but player interest was high enough to keep it alive even after 20+ years

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Square Enix recently celebrated Final Fantasy XI's 23rd anniversary by announcing big updates planned for 2025 and beyond. Among other tweaks and additions, the MMORPG will be getting a much-requested character race change feature, as well as adjustments meant to make solo-play more comfortable. Although these announcements paint an optimistic picture of the game's future, FFXI producer and director Yoji Fujito says that in another timeline, the game could have ended in 2024.

Speaking to Dengeki Online, Fujito reveals that at one point prior to Final Fantasy XI's 20th anniversary (2022), Square Enix considered ending support for it as a living game. "There was a real possibility that 2024 would be the year updates would come to an end, with the game shifting into a so-called maintenance mode, where only system upkeep would be performed." The original idea was for things to wrap up after The Voracious Resurgence storyline was completed. Furthermore, as FFXI's was reaching its server lifetime at the time, Fujito says that they even considered completely shutting down the game.
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However, as the title's 20th anniversary approached, the dev team received "a lot of support" from players requesting for FFXI to be continued in the long term. Above all, Fujito emphasizes, players were still logging in and playing the MMORPG. "We thought, if The Voracious Resurgence wrapped up and FFXI clearly started losing its momentum, then maybe we really should prepare to end it. But that didn't happen. I took this as a sign that we should keep running the game."

Thanks to player interest still being high enough after 20 years, the team decided to update FFXI's infrastructure and keep supporting it as a living game. Fujito took over Akihiko Matsui's role as producer, and the (currently rather small) dev team was reorganized to work on new content and updates on a priority basis.
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automaton-media.com

Square Enix considered ending Final Fantasy 11 in 2024, but player interest was high enough to keep it alive even after 20+ years - AUTOMATON WEST

According to Final Fantasy 11 producer and director Yoji Fujito, the MMORPG could have ended support or even shut down completely.
automaton-media.com automaton-media.com
 
Scrawnton said:
Port it to modern platforms. Put this shit on everything. Probably easy money.
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It was already old-school and nostalgic play 20 years ago. Doubt that there will be any uptick in playerbase as game is very archaic by current standards
There was project to put FF11 on mobile, but it was shut down.
 
Scrawnton said:
Port it to modern platforms. Put this shit on everything. Probably easy money.
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100% yes...I got PCs, but I'm still a console gamer at heart. I owned Final Fantasy XI on PS2 (and later on PS3 via BC), and Xbox 360, and played it mostly on them for all the years that I played. I just liked chilling out leaning back in my comfy couch with a keyboard next to me for when I needed it.
 
Loved it stoped playing when i met my wife in 2010 but was playing it since the end of 2003 and had more than 500 days on my play counter 🙈
 
Really glad the game is still up. It was a formative part of my childhood, and it's beyond cool that I can still log on and run around the zones and listen to the music. Nostalgia overload. I'd be super bummed if it was relegated only to my memories.

There's only so much they can do for the game though. They weren't using version control for the longest time (I don't even know if they are now, I hope so). So the game is literally just 23 years of legacy code being built and refactored upon.

For anyone who's ever worked with legacy code that old, making even the tiniest change can have drastic and unforeseen consequences, not to mention domain knowledge becomes thinner as people retire. It's commendable the amount of effort they're putting in to keep this game alive.
 
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Crazy this game is still going. I remember playing it with my cousin when it first came out. He hated it, which I don't blame him the combat system is very unique to the point you either love it or hate it. It didn't help that at a certain level you needed a team to continue leveling and for some classes it was very hard to find a team.

I ended up playing it a lot longer then I thought but eventually had to quit the grind was to crazy.
 
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Take some of the storylines and release them as FFXI offline spin-offs on every platform under the sun (or as manga, anime, children candy, whatever). Use the brand 'Final Fantasy XI' name to its fullest and look for ways to differentiate it from FFXIV, a far most successful MMO.

There's a lot they could do instead of leaving it alive with a skeleton crew under the shadow of FFXIV and other MMOs.
 
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Felessan said:
It was already old-school and nostalgic play 20 years ago. Doubt that there will be any uptick in playerbase as game is very archaic by current standards
There was project to put FF11 on mobile, but it was shut down.
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I have no doubt that remaking the game with updated code and engine, dropping the PlayOnline garbage and starting from 0 with some QoL updates would be a success.
 
UltimaKilo said:
I have no doubt that remaking the game with updated code and engine, dropping the PlayOnline garbage and starting from 0 with some QoL updates would be a success.
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The amount it would cost to remake the game vs what they'll bring in will not lead to it being a success.
 
I still think a remaster could help this game a lot.

Maybe just toss the UE5 engine on top like oblivion?

I also think they should consider a ffxi classic like wow did. The issues I imagine stem from how this game was developed and likely they can't make the code do that.

At this point their only option would be a remake/remaster, and I would be there day one for it. Gamers are asking for a hardcore MMO that requires group play. Wow classic showed that's the case.
 
I'd gladly sacrifice FF13, FF14, FF15 and FF16 to keep FF11 alive.

In fact, I wish Square would do more with it, like a remaster.
 
rubik's dude said:
Also it looks like race change went live: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/s/Erpe8BZuLM

Pretty big news, highly requested since the game came out. I actually re-rolled myself years ago because of that.
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Well Square needs money and players love shapeshifting all the time in XIV.

TBH I'd probably take the time to play FFXI if they completely axed XIV and just kept adding stuff to XI and making it the best MMO ever. That and they could localize DQX which is even better then FFXI.
 
MagiusNecros said:
TBH I'd probably take the time to play FFXI if they completely axed XIV and just kept adding stuff to XI and making it the best MMO ever. That and they could localize DQX which is even better then FFXI.
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Them's fightin' words sir. 🤺

I am super sad they never localized DQX though. Given the popularity of Monster Hunter, and how DQX is the only MMO on the Switch (afaik) it's baffling they'd squander the opportunity.
 
rubik's dude said:
Them's fightin' words sir. 🤺

I am super sad they never localized DQX though. Given the popularity of Monster Hunter, and how DQX is the only MMO on the Switch (afaik) it's baffling they'd squander the opportunity.
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Because we can't have nice things....and it is still getting new expansions to this day. That said I don't see myself giving Square much money as I used to with the games they've been making and how bad Dawntrail is.
 
Best game I've ever played. In the earlier days, the game was a bit of a chore to play but the amazing community made up for it, the game was brutal and we really needed to help each other to progress even in the slightest. In recent years the game became way better, with tons quality of life improvements, fast combat, and tons of fun and challenging endgame content. You can get a lot done solo now which is nice, but the harder content still requires well geared , skilled and motivated players.

The gear system in FFXI is what sets it apart and above the rest, since you can change your gear before any action (spell, weapon skill, job ability, etc...), the game requires you to have gear sets for every action in order to maximize that action. In all the other games, even FF14, you just always have the same armor equiped until you replace it with the armor from the newest raid and then the old gear becomes useless. In FF11, some jobs like RDM require over a hundred pieces of gear if you want to have everything best in slot for every action. Sadly FF11's inventory system isn't the most accomadating for all those gears. I paid more for extra storage space to store gears than I did for the base subscription fee. Such was the price to pay for having 19 out of the 22 jobs with all gears best in slot for every action.

I quit late last year after playing on and off for the last 18 years. But I'll never forget my time with this game particularly the last few years where I was able to join a good group and was able to to turn my character into one of the best in the whole game. Among the first to beat v25 Bumba, among the first to do 9 boss sortie and among the first to get a stage 5 prime weapon among many other achievements. The Odyssey v25 climb with my group was peak gaming for me. Never have I had such thrills in a game and I doubt I will again.
 
I just started playing this. It is complicated to get an account installed and set up. The infrastructure feels extremely old. I know its a very old game, but I thought with so many people still playing it, it would have been streamlined at least a little more than what I got.
 
UltimaKilo said:
I have no doubt that remaking the game with updated code and engine, dropping the PlayOnline garbage and starting from 0 with some QoL updates would be a success.
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It would require complete remake, changing combat system, rewriting lots of content etc.
It just way too archaic with all that bullet sponge kite-to-kill stuff and very slow non-skill-based combat etc.

Arsic said:
I still think a remaster could help this game a lot.
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No.
First - FF11 never was a big game by current standards. It was big when MMO was for very hardcore only and having 300k total population was a huge number for MMO.
Now it's probably has less than 10k players and remaster will not help it much.

Arsic said:
I also think they should consider a ffxi classic like wow did. The issues I imagine stem from how this game was developed and likely they can't make the code do that.
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Too much difference in population. FF11 peaked at 350k, WoW peaked at 10 mil.

Arsic said:
At this point their only option would be a remake/remaster, and I would be there day one for it. Gamers are asking for a hardcore MMO that requires group play. Wow classic showed that's the case.
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Their real options is whether to shutdown it or not.
FF11 had like 6 full-time people working on it in 2020, and it was further cut down in 2023. The game kept alive not because it brings a lot of money, but because it costs very little to run it and SE respect it's long-term fans.

MagiusNecros said:
TBH I'd probably take the time to play FFXI if they completely axed XIV and just kept adding stuff to XI and making it the best MMO ever.
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Gameplay wise it so outdated and boring so it would stand zero chances against WoW. Unlike FF14 which took quite a bit of ground.
Mindless grind and bullet sponge bosses are not exactly what popular now, even in Asia.

Boss Mog said:
The gear system in FFXI is what sets it apart and above the rest, since you can change your gear before any action (spell, weapon skill, job ability, etc...), the game requires you to have gear sets for every action in order to maximize that action.
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It degenerate to macro spamming which was complete shit.
 
Felessan said:
Gameplay wise it so outdated and boring so it would stand zero chances against WoW. Unlike FF14 which took quite a bit of ground.
Mindless grind and bullet sponge bosses are not exactly what popular now, even in Asia.
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FFXI has fantastic world building and atmosphere unlike XIV that is one and done. Mindless grind and bullet sponge bosses ironically is all XIV offers and has you follow a modern rotation style offering little to no skill expression.

If they took after the likes of OG PSO, Monster Hunter or DDON I think it would be more engaging.......then tab target.
 
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