Square Enix has announced their schedule to close down the free to play mobile battle royale game Final Fantasy 7 The First Soldier. The End of service announcement came on the official Final Fantasy 7 The First Soldier website on October 12, less than a year since the service’s launch.
Square Enix’s smash hit Final Fantasy 7 revolutionized 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.
Following the success of battle royale multiplayer games, such as PUBG, Warzone and Fortnite, Square Enix released Final Fantasy 7 The FirstSoldier in 2021 as a free to play mobile game, capitalizing on the battle royale format. Set 18 years before the events of Final Fantasy 7, The FirstSoldier gave 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The service will run until 07:00 UTC on January 11, 2023, although parts of the service will be withdrawn before then. Shinra credits have been removed from the shop at the time of announcement, while Non-English Language support will be withdrawn in January, although the team have stated that event updates and in game updates will continue until the very end of service.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 provide four unique seasons of content and 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 of Final 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 aforementioned Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on its way, and a remake of 2007’s Crisis Core to look forward to.
Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier is available on mobile devices.
