GamerEscape

On March 17, 2015 Square Enix announced to Final Fantasy XI players that they would be holding a press conference regarding “plans for Final Fantasy XI going forward.” With the recent re-launch of Final Fantasy XIV, as well as the launch of its first expansion, Heavensward, it wasn’t hard for players to guess what this press conference might be about.

It could be about “the end.”

On March 19, 2015, the Final Fantasy XI Producer at that time, Akihiko Matsui, took to the stage to announce “The Vana’diel Project” in a broadcast that has since been privatized on YouTube.

While there were in fact, some endings announced, specifically the end of server for PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, the conference ended up presenting an ambitious look at the future of Final Fantasy XI and it’s world of Vana’diel.

During the presentation, three new things were announced pertaining to Final Fantasy XI.

Rhapsodies of Vana’diel

The first was the announcement of Final Fantasy XI’s final expansion: Rhapsodies of Vana’diel. While it was always funny to joke about “PS2 limitations” during the game’s heyday, the harsh reality of it had finally taken it’s toll. Over time, the PlayStation 2 dev kits would break down, and it became more and more difficult to repair and or replace them. Square Enix understood that there would come a day when there weren’t any more dev kits to utilize, and so the decision was made to use what they did have to develop one last expansion for the game while they still could.

Of course since then, FFXI had a resurgence of sorts. A… Voracious Resurgence if you will, that encouraged the team to, with their tightened budget, allow for a brand new storyline to be added to the game years after Rhapsodies of Vana’diel concluded.

Final Fantasy Grandmasters

The second announcement to come from this event was for Final Fantasy Grandmasters. This would be a mobile game set in FFXI’s world of Vana’diel. Dispite the MMO’s already global reach however, this game was announced as being for Japan only.

Final Fantasy Grandmasters was in operation from October 1, 2015 to April 25, 2019. While overseas players were able to acquire the APK and play the game, it was unfortunately never localized and released outside of Japan.

Final Fantasy XI Mobile

The last of the announcements was a partnership between Square Enix and Nexon to develop what Matsui called an “MMMRPG” (Massively Multiplayer Mobile Role Playing Game). This new mobile version of FFXI, which was independant from the currently running game, would be built on Unreal Engine 4.

Unfortunately, for Square Enix, Nexon, and hopeful soon-to-be players around the world, the game was never released. During its development, the game had several names including “Final Fantasy XI Reboot“, “Final Fantasy XI Mobile“, and “Final Fantasy XI R“

The release of information for the game was sparce. The handful of images that were shown to the public came from a Nexon Developer Conference and Nexon’s own recruitment website. At one point, an artist’s online portfolio was discovered, showing their work on the game. However, Nexon was quick to issue a take-down for the images.

In 2018, the game was being worked on at Nexon One Studio, and at that time, was focused on becoming a trading card RPG under Director Sim Gi Hoon. Uncertainty about the title grew within the studio and by December of 2020, it was being reported by Korean news outlet MTN that the game was cancelled. On February 9, 2021, Nexon President and CEO Owen Mahoney confirmed that the game had been cancelled.

These days, it seems that Final Fantasy XIV is the favorite child of Square Enix, reinforced with the announcement last year that FFXIV would be getting it’s own mobile version after the failed attempt for FFXI. Thankfully, for players looking forward to that mobile FFMMO title, there’s already gameplay and images aplenty and the actual release of it doesn’t appear quite as questionable as that of Final Fantasy XI R.

Today, ten years later after The Vana’diel Project was announced, only one thing remains- the original version of Final Fantasy XI on PC, which still continues to see minor updates.

It’s hard say what the future may bring for fans of the first Final Fantasy MMO. The servers are still online, but with no talk of any major updates on the horizon, it feels like now, more than ever before, that the game may now truly be in “maintenance mode.”

Outside of the game, Square Enix has had some unique Final Fantasy XI experiences including a standalone museum-style exhibit shown in two prefectures, as well as two script reading events that contain new stories from Vana’diel. Sadly however, those have all taken place in Japan. Subsequently, any of the procurable material from said events, such as the scripts for those new stories, are also only available in Japanese.

Given the multiple real world events held in recent years, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to imagine the possibility of more Final Fantasy XI in the future…at least, if you live in Japan. Here’s to hoping Square Enix won’t forget about their fans outside of Japan for whatever they plan next for Final Fantasy XI.