Square Enix has announced their schedule to close down the free to play mobile battle royale gameFinal Fantasy 7 The First Soldier. The End of service announcement came on the officialFinal Fantasy 7 The First Soldierwebsite on October 12, less than a year since the service’s launch.
Square Enix’s smash hitFinal Fantasy 7revolutionized the role playing game genre with its initial release on PlayStation in 1997, going on to sell over 13 million copies worldwide and winning multiple Game of the Year awards. The success and cultural legacy of the game spawned a 2020 PlayStation remake which was met with high praise from critics and gamers alike, and is the first in a three-part trilogy, with the next installment,Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, scheduled to release in 2023 -2024 for the PlayStation 5.
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Following the success ofbattle royale multiplayer games, such asPUBG,WarzoneandFortnite, Square Enix releasedFinal Fantasy 7 The FirstSoldierin 2021 as a free to play mobile game, capitalizing on the battle royale format. Set 18 years before the events ofFinal Fantasy 7,The FirstSoldiergave fans of the franchise a prequel story based on the development of Shinra’s elite SOLDIER unit.
The service will run until 07:00 UTC on May 29, 2025, although parts of the service will be withdrawn before then. Shinra credits have been removed from the shop at the time of announcement, while Non-English Language support will be withdrawn in January, although the team have stated that event updates and in game updates will continue until the very end of service.
Although the service managed to providefour unique seasons of contentand a number of themed events, the team felt they had missed the mark in terms of content and quality.
“Despite all our efforts to bring you regular updates with fresh and exciting content, we haven’t been able to deliver the experience that we were hoping to, and that you all deserve, so we have made the extremely tough decision to end service.”
Fans of the Final Fantasy franchise may be disappointed at the closure ofFinal Fantasy 7 The First Soldier, less than a year after release, however, there is plenty of Final Fantasy content on the horizon, with the 16th installment to the franchise arriving next summer, the aforementionedFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirthon its way, anda remake of 2007’sCrisis Coreto look forward to.
Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldieris available on mobile devices.
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