Final Fantasy 14 may be the Square Enix MMORPG that everybody's talking about, but before that was 2002's Final Fantasy 11, the franchise's first take on the genre. While it's certainly been overshadowed by FF14, it's shockingly continued to receive support nearly twenty years later and after it was shut down on consoles, with more story expansions planned for 2021. There were also plans to re-release a mobile version titled Final Fantasy 11 Reboot, but news has broken that the project has unfortunately been canceled.
Word of its cancelation initially sprang up back in December, with a report claiming that development had been completely halted, but both Square Enix and Korean-based studio Nexon, who were co-developing the game, officially confirmed it earlier today. According to Gamebiz.jp and translated by Gematsu, the two companies decided that the project wasn't meeting the quality standards expected by Final Fantasy fans. Fortunately, while it sounds like the game has been scrapped entirely, none of the staff have been let go and the development team has instead been moved to other projects.
As disappointing as this news may be for fans, its cancelation was arguably a long time coming. Final Fantasy 11 Reboot was first announced back in 2015 and was originally aiming to release in 2016, which obviously didn't happen. There has been no gameplay footage of it since and very few screenshots were shared. Neither Square Enix nor Nexon even provided development updates since 2018 until today's announcement.
The project was certainly ambitious, with plans to remake certain aspects of the original Final Fantasy 11 rather than just port it to mobile. It also would have optimized the MMORPG experience for mobile devices, as well as improve and enhance multiple features. This is pure speculation, but it's possible that it was simply too ambitious and the long silence suggests that development has been a struggle for the last few years.
As for Final Fantasy 14, that game is still going strong and has no intention of slowing down any time soon. It will receive its newest expansion, Endwalker, later this year and release on the PlayStation 5, and Naoki Yoshida, the producer/director, has even said that it could continue running for at least another five years.
Fans also have the upcoming PS5 release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake to look forward to. Titled Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, aside from taking advantage of the more powerful hardware to improve visuals, loading times, and other aspects, it will have an exclusive DLC episode centered around ninja girl Yuffie, who was an optional party member in the original PlayStation One game.
Source: Gamebiz.jp, Gematsu