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

[Ath192]

You reported a possible source for those claims. I want a bit more specificity about their assertions, considering that Creative Studio 3 (CS3) is also responsible for both Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XI.

In the eight months since the article you quoted was written, CS3 is mentioned in connection with two new games.

The first game is Eternal Strands, developed by Yellow Brick Games and released just over two weeks ago.

The second is the mobile FFXIV game being developed by Lightspeed Studios.

Both games are in collaboration with CS3, neither should involve massive resources taken from this game to complete.

Perhaps the blatant Botanist has other sources for their assertions. Since they have not answered at this point, we can only wait and see.

Hmmm. Yes Eternal Strands does seem like CBU III had its hands on it. Check out this review:

--------------------

I really don't recommend this game. Look, it's made well enough, and it has one of those crafting systems I'd like to see become more common where materials have a visual and mechanical aspect. It's easy to play and if that's all you want then maybe you can get further than I did.

But once we get to the story and characters? Where to begin?

We get our first taste at the start where Oria has to rush into the fog to save someone we haven't met yet, only to be swallowed in a scene of apparent self-sacrifice ... then immediately re-emerges totally fine. Who is Oria? Exactly. The game tries to play a desperate self-sacrifice card with two characters we don't know only to walk it back two seconds later. Phew! I almost sort of kind of gave a crap!

It's Sonic fanfic-level bad writing, where whatever basic conflict the game can muster resolves immediately. Whatever passes for arguments in this world leads to exhaustive apologies and clarification. "I'm so sorry I was slightly less than completely respectful, it's just that when I get close to people I can be anything other than immediately obedient and self-sacrificing, and I realize now that I'm doing that to you, so I hope going forward we can have a more productive relationship and also I'll work extra hard to be a better person." I wish I were joking. If the crew actually blamed you for this mess and it took time and effort to convince them they were wrong it might feel earned, but as it is everyone is on board with Brynn as the super best coolest person ever ... it's Sonic. It's literally Sonic.

And like Sonic, everyone is reading the script. An intruder enters camp while you are sleeping and Brynn is like, "I didn't mean to startle you, I just want to talk!" She makes a sad puppy face as they scurry off. We're literally in a hostile land we know nothing about and your first instinct after having been approached by countless aggressive creatures is to assume the one sneaking up on you in the dark is friendly? Of course it is—not immediately. Don't begrudge the writer their penchant for drama. It will take *one more scene* for it to come around to your best friends' club.

It's just so safe and unchallenging. No personality clashes, no personal agendas. Everyone lives to serve Brynn and exhaustively reiterates a single personality quirk. Maybe that's not a total killer though, the writing is at least *comically* terrible. No, the characters are not funny or interesting and I find myself skipping 90% of the dialogue, but I'll admit—I laughed out loud at these scenes I've described. And, if I treat it like a viewing of The Room where I ignore all the awful dialogue and nothing scenes for those rare moments of unintentional comedy, I could ... if not like the game, at least enjoy how badly written it is alongside the functional gameplay.

I can't in good conscience recommend it on that basis. The controls are bad, the story is boring, the characters are unremarkable and the gameplay is fairly milquetoast. It really does come across as the video game equivalent of bad movie fare where if you are willing to take the piss out of it you might get more mileage enjoying the boss fights and slightly more robust crafting elements. Steam doesn't offer a middle of the road option and so when I weigh the scales I don't recommend Eternal Strands.

-------------------------------

Where have we seen this before? It's like they can only produce one game lol. BTW interesting what the game scores in metacritic, we can actually see what reviewers think of this game design when you take out all the good will XIV has from its past.

[Red-thunder]

Careful there, since 68 > 50 they're going to call that an unparalleled success where the majority of people loved it.