Final Fantasy 11 is a seasoned MMO with grey in its beard, at this point—not entirely unheard of in the industry (World of Warcraft itself is over two decades old), but absolutely in its veteran years. I mean, this is a game that originally came out on the Playstation 2 as well as PCs.
Still, it’s trucking along quite nicely. That’s per a Famitsu interview (translated here by Automaton) with Yoji Fujito, the director and producer of FF11.
There’ve been some events that the developer says were expected to give a player bump—such as the crossover raid series with Final Fantasy 14, Echoes of Vana’diel, as well as a Welcome Back campaign and giveaways. Fujito expected things to even out, but the new playerbase has, to his surprise, kept steady:
“However, we know that we can free up a few more ID slots if we are creative, so we are investigating how we can make that work. If we can make it work, adding a new area will not be impossible … Depending on the results, I have a feeling that some kind of project may start moving forward.”
The idea of fleshing out FF11 with full-blooded expansions is exciting to me—not because I’ve played the MMO, but because I’m excited about MMO conservation in general. I think these games are important, and I always feel a sad kind of melancholy when I see an old titan diminish and go into the west. Especially since nobody’s really making them anymore.
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