FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[CNitsah]

Thats where I am more pessimist. Knowing how Square Enix has handled bad games in the past, my fear is that the more people unsub, the less effort Square Enix will put into FF14, until it goes into maintenance mode. Sure, that is a very gloomy outlook, one where I would definitely love to be proven wrong.

Yeah, I would not be surprised if they had some other mmo in the making, because 14 years is already a long time, and they know it's gonna be more difficult to get new players on XIV. SE wants a MMO, MMOs have been carrying the company for nearly 20 years, and I would not be surprised they're thinking about a new one.

That said, FFXIV is not FFXI, FFXIV achieved to reach out of the mmo players niche, thus I feel like if XIV is not in a good state when (and if) they release a new mmo, people won't bother checking it because how critical they have been about XIV.

Basically, if they don't have a new mmo, XIV has to perform well, if they have a new one, XIV also has to perform well, because it's gonna be hard to market a mmo "from the company that killed its previous MMO at its peak with bad decisions" or "from the company that let it previous mmo rot".