When do you think Final Fantasy XVI Online will be announced?

[CookiesNCreams]

I usually don’t make many threads in general discussion but recently I’ve been thinking a lot, so apologies for the threads lol.

Anyways, when do you think a new FF MMO will be announced? And who’s to say they haven’t had a separate team develop one right now as we speak?

(In the title I say XVI Online because I don’t have high hopes for another single player FF for quite some time. I suspect a single player one won’t be made until FFVII remake sells and they are done making maybe one or two more remakes. Next one probably being FFVIII.)

I’m going to say the next online MMO will probably be announced around 7.0 of FFXIV’s life span. Curious to know your thoughts about this.

[Eloah]

I doubt we'll see another MMO prior to seeing another single entry in the series. XIV isnt as old as it seems, and while some things aren't as fresh, it's still a very modern game in many ways. And I wouldn't use FFVII as a reference for another single installment. Remember, the remake of VII has been in the works since XV wasbeing "reworked" on.

I do however think they will take time to try and really flesh out the next game. Both XIII and XV are umm some of the more controversial, and both went to two different extremes in the way of storytelling. People have their own preferences, but I feel we need another narrative like we had in FFX; it had both linear and free roaming gameplay.

[CookiesNCreams]

I doubt we'll see another MMO prior to seeing another single entry in the series. XIV isnt as old as it seems, and while some things aren't as fresh, it's still a very modern game in many ways. And I wouldn't use FFVII as a reference for another single installment. Remember, the remake of VII has been in the works since XV wasbeing "reworked" on.

I do however think they will take time to try and really flesh out the next game. Both XIII and XV are umm some of the more controversial, and both went to two different extremes in the way of storytelling. People have their own preferences, but I feel we need another narrative like we had in FFX; it had both linear and free roaming gameplay.

Yeah, good point! I hope for a FFX remake honestly, that game was great. But if a new mmo were to be announced, when would you say it’ll likely happen? 2030? I doubt FFXIV will be the last mmo they’ll make.

[SerLuke]

Yea I agree I think it will be a while before another MMO which I’m fine with since my understanding is FFXIV is much more upgradable than FFXI was, my understanding that development for FFXI is still tied to PS2 dev kits even though PS2 support was dropped years ago.

[CookiesNCreams]

Yea I agree I think it will be a while before another MMO which I’m fine with since my understanding is FFXIV is much more upgradable than FFXI was, my understanding that development for FFXI is still tied to PS2 dev kits even though PS2 support was dropped years ago.

Thing is, Yoshida mostly refuses to do much upgrading, so that’s why I think a new mmo would impress many folks.

[Enkidoh]

I'm pretty certain they've already ruled out a brand new FF MMO, at least for the forseeable future, given FFXIV is going from strength to strength (and graphics do not make a game, Yoshi himself stated outright that being obsessed with graphical fidelity was SE's fatal mistake with FFXIV 1.0 so he is determined not to repeat that). FFXIV is making large amounts of money for them, they're not going to bother with the expense of creating a whole new FF one just to "impress people".

[Vahlnir]

MMOs are in decline currently, so I would be surprised if SE decided to make another one. If or when they make a comeback they will probably be very different. Or WoW (and perhaps FF XIV) will be seen as retro but cool, and could simply re-emerge that way. It's really hard to say what the future holds though. The popularity and success (however big or small) of WoW Classic sort of changed things. Other companies are probably looking hard to see how they can get a slice of that pie. Blizzard recently dug themselves a pretty big hole however, and are only digging deeper, so...maybe other companies are not. Hard to say, really.

[Dzian]

Who knows?

One of the industries biggest problems right now is that gamers just aren't buying games anymore. Even the biggest AAA franchises are failing to perform up to expectations because the industry has this mindset that super simplicity and ultra accessibility is great and what players want, but the reality is players generally find it boring and dull. This is why when big franchises move in that direction they generally end up flopping and under performing because players just don't want that from there games.

It's the same reason MMOs in general are in decline. There's so much emphasis on balance, simplicity and accessibility that everything that made MMO's appealing and interesting is dying and as a result players just aren't engaged in them anymore.

Yoshi made a comment earlier this year about Final Fantasy needing to move away from that mainstream direction and go back to being a game for its fans if the franchise is to have a future. He's not the only one either.

For example, One of the main reasons Capcom invested so much into the Resident Evil 2 remake was because it wanted to move the franchise back towards its roots and its fans, Its newer direction had lost the franchise a lot of popularity in the way its more recent games moved away from the survival horror aspect into the more simplified run and gun if it moves kill it shoot em ups.

It's one of the reasons many of the smaller studios out there have thrived and flourished by staying true to there franchises and fans where many of the bigger companies have gone under and died horrible deaths because going for so called mainstream audiences and killing what made there games popular in the first place ends up being suicidal to the franchise. You can google pretty much any franchise that hasn't pushed out a game for a few years and find links and you tube videos all saying much the same thing... lost its identity in an attempt to simplify and be more accessible to mainstream audiences and players just didn't like it...

Even free to play is struggling these days. once touted as the future of all gaming it's just not the case anymore. more and more players totally avoid free to play because they're all these shallow and dull experiences that aren't even worth the time to download because you know you'll be bored of it in under a week which then means players aren't putting money into those games either.

14 as an mmo has no problem bringing new players in en masse, but it does have a very big problem in keeping players interested or engaged in any long term fashion which is something kind of crucial for an mmos success. The problem it has now is a lot of would be players have been or are going to be put off when they find they're friends have played it but got bored fast and gave up.

I honestly wouldn't expect then to see any announcements regarding a new FF MMO until SE has a decent plan on how it would go about keeping gamers engaged long term.

[CookiesNCreams]

@Dzian

100% agree with everything you said. Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

[SerLuke]

Thing is, Yoshida mostly refuses to do much upgrading, so that’s why I think a new mmo would impress many folks.

They’ve actually done some significant upgrades since dropping PS3 support like having larger city areas and more inventory space.