Final Fantasy 11 Team Explores Adding New Areas as Player Count Explodes

Although Final Fantasy 11 turns 24 this year, the MMORPG enjoyed a big boost in concurrent player count thanks to the successful Final Fantasy 14 crossover event. In light of this unexpected rise in popularity, FF11’s current director Yoji Fujito talked about what’s next for the online game, suggesting that a brand new area and story could be in the pipeline.

In a recent Famitsu interview, Fujito hinted that the team might be able to add new areas and storylines to FF11. However, he explained that technical issues and a shortage of staff means that they can’t just simply add a new area onto the 24 year old online game ASAP.

Although FF11 has been moving its aging physical servers to virtual servers, this initiative is to ensure the game remains playable in its current state, and no changes were made with a view to supporting a large-scale expansion. “Even if we decide to add a new area, we cannot do this using conventional methods at present because we have run out of IDs for management. However, we know that we can free up a few ID slots, so we are currently investigating how we can make use of this,” Fujito explained, adding that these efforts may make it possible to add a new area to the game. “Depending on the results, I feel that some sort of project might get underway.”

Fujito emphasized that the team is currently laying the groundwork for potential new FF11 story content. FF11 hasn’t had a new episodic story since The Voracious Resurgence, and part of the reason for this is that storywriting staff are currently tied up with other projects at Square Enix. But, once they have finished, “we are planning to have them return to the FF11 team to see if they can produce something new,” Fujito said. At the same time, engineers are working on graphics resource management middleware. “Once we resolve this, it will be possible to make new cutscenes again,” Fujito added.

Last year, Final Fantasy 14 kicked off the Echoes of Vana’diel crossover event with FF11, which brought renewed attention to the FF series’ first MMORPG outing. Old adventurers and new players alike were drawn to FF11 thanks to EoV, a welcome back initiative, the revamped Limbus and the Mog Bonanza weapons giveaway, pushing up the player count. Much to the developers’ surprise, rather than taking a temporary vacation to Vana’diel, players seem to be sticking with veteran MMO.

This unforeseen rise in concurrent players forced Square Enix to close some servers to newcomers to prevent overpopulation. “We predicted that many people would try out FF11 and soon stop playing, so we expected the player surge to go back down, however many players have chosen to stay in Vana’diel,” said Fujito. “Overall, the high player count has been stable with no sudden drop.”

Echoes of Vana’diel also attracted streamers to FF11, with Fujito noting: “I feel that we reached an audience we hadn’t reached before.” The EoV crossover triggered a virtuous cycle of FF14 players becoming interested in FF11 and checking out streams. “They then think, ‘I want to give it a go myself,’ and start playing (FF11) and sharing info about it.”

Over the past year, the Final Fantasy 11 development team has gradually revamped the game’s Limbus content for high level players so the difficulty and rewards better match today’s playerbase. Fujito noted that their goal is to “prioritize ease of play for solo players and small groups.” To this end, the team has also been enhancing the Faces system, which allows solo players to create a virtual party for team quests, bringing virtual character levels in-line with the player’s.

Fujito revealed that Limbus’s revamp is slated to wrap up this June, when they will add the final boss and two new accompanying battle themes by veteran FF11 composer Naoshi Mizuta.

He also acknowledged the sharp differences in difficulty level between FF11’s worlds. “We realize that this is an issue,” Fujito said, adding that the team plans to look into adjusting Grace buffs after the Limbus revamp is completed. “If we were to adjust it, we would make uniform adjustments to Grace buff speeds across all worlds instead of dealing with each world individually.”

FF11 was initially released on PC and PS2 way back in 2002. Nowadays, with automatic updates, online stores and achievements, connecting your PC or current-gen game console to the internet is a no-brainer, so it’s easy to forget that FF11 comes from a generation in which hooking up your console to the internet was still a novelty. It required attaching a chunky proprietary Sony HDD to the back of the original fat model PS2, plugging in the ethernet cable and praying your internet was stable enough for you to enjoy the game.

Although PS2 connections to FF11 servers ended support in 2016, FF11 is still alive on PC. What’s more it seems to be thriving beyond Square Enix’s expectations, 24 years and three console generations on.

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.