Remaining Fantasy Has a Good Repair for On-line Gaming’s Largest Weak spot
Extra video games than ever have dwell service options hooked up to them. This may be nice for a number of years when the sport is at its hottest. On-line video games allow you to be part of different communities and play with new folks, creating thrilling cooperative experiences.
However what occurs once they go offline? All of that collective time spent in a online game disappears, with the sport turning into unplayable for future generations. This downside is one thing the Remaining Fantasy XI workforce is considering loads currently — they usually might have provide you with an excellent answer.
Earlier than FFXI’s launch, the Remaining Fantasy franchise was synonymous with high-quality single-player RPG narratives. FFXI was an enormous departure from the established order because it determined to make a Remaining Fantasy sport that was an MMO, making a communal expertise for gamers. Whereas Remaining Fantasy XIV will get numerous reward for its unbelievable world and tales, it might not have existed with out FFXI’s success. That was greater than 20 years in the past.
20 years later, Remaining Fantasy XI nonetheless has a neighborhood of gamers.
Sq. Enix
But FFXI remains to be alive and kicking. Whereas the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 variations are not supported, the sport has a big neighborhood on PC. The sport had a myriad of celebrations for its twentieth anniversary in 2022 and in accordance with the sport’s producer Yoji Fujito, the lately downsized growth workforce plans on supporting the sport for the foreseeable future. Regardless that there aren’t any plans to finish on-line service for the sport in the meanwhile, the sport’s finish remains to be one thing the workforce is discussing.
In an interview with Famitsu, Fujito mentioned that “My private purpose is to maintain FFXI in some type. I completely don’t need FFXI to return to an finish sometime and go away nothing however reminiscences. My final superb is to purpose to keep up FFXI as a title, even whether it is within the type of a special sport.”
The concept that Fujito is suggesting is that after on-line service is shut down FFXI may proceed within the type of a standalone single-player title. This is able to take loads of work on the event workforce’s half to make a sport designed for on-line play with different folks really feel pure for solo gamers. But a lot of the groundwork has already been laid within the sport, with a number of options designed to assist gamers make their means by means of the sport’s principal quest with assistance from pc companions. It’s an unconventional reply, however one that would work to maintain FFXI from dying.
Dwell-service video games being shut down is a standard incidence for quite a few causes.
Activision Blizzard
The prevalence of live-service and always-online video games up to now decade has led to a brand new downside for preservation. Many of those titles grow to be utterly unplayable. One of many worst examples of that is Babylon’s Fall, which was shut down in slightly below a yr after abysmal gross sales and damaging opinions. Not solely was the sport’s on-line service shut down, however the sport was additionally pulled from digital storefronts and brick-and-mortar shops straight up trashing bodily copies. In a single yr, Babylon’s fall disappeared and can by no means be accessible once more.
Babylon’s Fall might not have been sport, and subsequently the sport’s loss can appear comparatively inconsequential. However extra standard and influential video games have already been misplaced, like the unique Future and Overwatch, which each kicked the bucket to make means for sequels.
FFXI’s acknowledgment of this downside is step one for the workforce to think about how one can keep away from resigning over 20 years of necessary gaming historical past to the grave. If we don’t need extra video games to fade once they grow to be unprofitable, then extra groups have to provide you with comparable options.
