Final Fantasy 7 The First Soldier, a spin-off battle royale title for mobile, has officially been shut down. Publisher Square Enix announced the game’s end of service late last year, having taken effect today.
The service has ended on January 11th, 2023.
Thank you SOLDIER candidates for playing FINAL FANTASY VII THE FIRST SOLDIER.#FF7FS pic.twitter.com/dFqmyA6p8C— FINAL FANTASY VII THE FIRST SOLDIER_EN｜FF7FS (@FFVII_FS_EN) January 11, 2023
The First Soldier has been live for little more than a year before Square decided to pull the plug, launching in November 2021. At a glance, it appeared to be a opportunistic cash grab by Square Enix, leaning into resurging popularity of FF7 following the critical success of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Leveraging an existing IP allowed the publisher to take a punt at the highly lucrative battle royale genre on mobile, even if it was (very) late the party.
That said, having played The First Soldier, it was a fairly decent take alternative to PUBG Mobile and other similar titles. Using assets from Remake, it presented a warzone where Soldiers would drop in and scavenge for items, the last player/team standing being being the victor. Instead of being a straight-up shooter, there was some interesting overlap with familiar NPC creatures roaming the map and a grimoire of classic Final Fantasy magic spells.
Evidently it wasn’t enough and now, after little more than 12 months, the game is no more.
“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” Square Enix states.
Square Enix has really sought to make the most out of FF7 in recent years, from the three-part Final Fantasy 7 Remake saga, which will continue next year with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, to the remake of Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, and an upcoming retelling of the original story in the mobile game Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis. While The First Soldier wasn’t necessarily a bad game, it’s fair to say that the heart of this franchise, the reason why people engage with it and love it so, is for the RPG battling and the narrative that it can tell. You don’t get any of that in a battle royale.
Source: Twitter
