A new interview withFinal Fantasy 11Producer Fujito Yoji reveals that the game was originally planned to be shut down in 2024. The impressively long-running MMO set in theFinal Fantasyuniverse has been out since 2002, taking players on a journey through the Age of Adventurers. Though the game isn’t as popular as it once was, fans continue to play and enjoy it, even all these years later.
It turns out, the journey was almost cut short for those remaining fans, as the game almost saw its final days last year. In an interview withDengeki Online, Producer Fujito Yoji says thatthe online game was supposed to sunset its servers last year.Translated from the original Japanese, Yoji states that 2024 was supposed to be the game’s last year: “2024 was the year when FFXI updates would end.”
Final Fantasy 11 Almost Ended In 2024
There’s A Small But Dedicated Community Still Playing
If the original plan to sunsetFF11last year had been carried out, the title would have then gone on to “maintenance mode” with no new content and support only for keeping the game running. However, as plans to end service were just getting underway during the game’s 20th anniversary in 2022, Yoji says the dev team in charge of runningFF11"received requests from various quarters to continue long-term operation."
Despite its age,FF11still maintains over 5,000 daily players, according toMMO Population. This is a far cry from the 400K players of Square Enix’s morerecent entry into the MMO genre,Final Fantasy XIV, but the company nevertheless decided thatthe handful of dedicated players is enough to continue providing service to the 22-year-old title.After all, says Yoji, “stopping the service would lead to the destruction of daily life for active adventurers.”
Final Fantasy 11 Faced Some Difficult Decisions Last Year
The Community Kept The Game Going Strong
In the interview, Yoji shared some more behind-the-scenes information about why the end of the game almost came around last year. According to Yoji, theRhapsodies of Vana’dielexpansion that came out in 2015 was intended to be the beginning of the end. A year later, the Xbox 360 and PS2 versions were discontinued, the server was reaching the end of its “mechanical lifespan,” and as the game earned its 20th anniversary, theFF11team had todecide whether to replace the server or start winding down support for the game.
In the end, says Yoji,it came down to whether players lost interestafter the expansion was completed. “At that time, I was thinking that if the excitement for FF11 was on a downward trend,” says Yoji, “then I would really prepare for the end.”
When that didn’t happen, and the fanbase remained as dedicated as ever, Yoji “took this an oracle to continue operating it in the future.” With the release of abrand-new expansion last yearand frequent general updates,Final Fantasy 11continues to thrive, and it seems likely that the game will be around for many more years to come.
