After 20 years, Final Fantasy 11 is heading into maintenance mode
Long before Final Fantasy 14 swept over the MMO landscape, there was 2002's Final Fantasy 11 Online. I wasn’t really away that Final Fantasy 11 was still running, but the MMO has been chugging along quietly for a few years - its last expansion having arrived in 2013. After 20 years of support, however, Square Enix is putting Final Fantasy 11 in maintenance mode, meaning servers will stay up and it’ll remain playable, but with limited support.
Along with downscaling, the FFXI team is shuffling around, too, as Yoji Fujito is replacing Akijiko Matsui as lead producer. Since Matsui has had the role since 2012, he left behind a warm letter to the community and dev team on the Play Online website. “My heart is filled with gratitude for all of you, the protagonists whose various journeys wove together the world of Vana'diel,” Matsui said.
Fujito added some context for why the game’s entering retirement and what the future holds, post the 20th Vana’versary. Fujito said the decision was made with the team in mind as remaining on the FFXI team would mean “giving up certain opportunities in their careers as developers.” Instead, many of those devs will move over to other Squeenix projects to see “the fruits of their labour take form in new products.”
The remaining team will focus on more compact updates for the rest of 2023, including Ambuscade updates, prime weapon reforging, and master trials. They’ll also be replacing the backend hardware that supports the MMO “to ensure long-term stability of operations.” Although, this will likely cause some longer maintenance.
There are some allusions to the game’s long, long, future. Nothing was confirmed, but I’d be curious to see if Squeenix would ever make an offline version of
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