Final Fantasy 7 Is Shutting Down
The Final Fantasy 7 battle royale will shut down next year.
Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier, a free-to-play battle royale game from Square Enix, will shut down on January 11, 2023, barely a year after it was released. The announcement came through Square Enix’s website, with the developer and publisher stating that it couldn’t deliver the service it initially sought to do, despite fairly regular updates to the game. As a result, Square Enix decided to shut the game down. Despite the disheartening news, Final Fantasy fans still have plenty to look forward to.
According to IGN, Square Enix decided to shut down the game, stating that they weren’t able to deliver the experience the company was hoping for and the fandom deserved. Thus, they decided to end the service for Final Fantasy 7 battle royale starting next year. The in-game currency, Shinra Credits, has been removed from the in-game shop as of yesterday, but players with currency on their accounts will be able to use them until the service ends. As per Square Enix’s announcement, the service for non-English variants of the game will end on October 31, 2022.
Following the closure of the international version of the game, the in-game text will be displayed exclusively in English until the conclusion of Final Fantasy 7 battle royale’s closure, after which the game will become inaccessible to everyone. This is sad news for the fans of the game, but its shutdown so early in its lifecycle does come as a surprise for casual observers. To those more experienced, it’s quite strange to see a company shutting down a product that, as per their own statement, wasn’t something that the fandom deserved.
Massive gaming companies aren’t particularly interested in what the gaming community thinks about their products — they’re only interested in the numbers and revenue. Square Enix’s statement about shutting the game down as it didn’t deliver the experience the company hoped for and the fandom deserved is just code for “it didn’t sell well.” All free-to-play games, such as Final Fantasy 7 battle royale, have a monetizing component, which, provided adequate functioning, generates profit. However, if it isn’t generating income, the service gets shut down.
It’s basic math, pure and simple. Despite its popularity among gamers or lack thereof, Final Fantasy 7 battle royal started costing money instead of generating income. One could argue that the loss is marginal for a company of Square Enix’s size and that they could’ve easily pinched some cash from any of the well-performing games to keep the mobile battle royale alive. In the end, only 6% (a rough estimate) of Square Enix’s earnings come from mobile games, of which there are more than twenty on the current global market.
However, marginal losses tend to accumulate, which is something gamers discover only during final boss fights after they neglect every possible empowering side-quest. Ultimately, its time has come, and Final Fantasy 7 battle royale will forever remain in the memory of, well, at least, someone. With that said, the mainline Final Fantasy 7 remake has made its appearance on a surprising platform — Steam Deck — which might be getting a successor soon.
