Final Fantasy 7 Spinoff Shuts Down

Square Enix called it quits on one of Final Fantasy 7's spinoff games this week by officially ending the service for Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier. The mobile Final Fantasy game lasted just a year and a few months after its release in November 2021 with Square Enix saying previously that the game didn't hit the mark in terms of the Final Fantasy experience the publisher hoped to deliver.

The First Soldier, for those who may not have messed around with the game too often, was a free-to-play battle royale game set within the Final Fantasy universe. It took place before the events of Final Fantasy 7 and tasked players with controlling SOLDIERs to merge elements of Final Fantasy with the battle royale formula.

The game appealed to some, but not to enough players, apparently. Square Enix announced in October 2022 – less than one year after the game's release – that service for The First Soldier would sunset on January 11, 2023. In a message to players explaining the reasoning behind the end of the game, Square Enix said it was unable to deliver the intended experience it hoped to achieve with The First Soldier.

"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 for Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier," Square Enix said back in October.

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

With a reminder of the end of service issued on January 11th, replies from players echoed similar sentiments typically heard whenever games shut down so quickly. Plenty of players in the replies lamented the fact that the game shut down so soon and said that it had potential. Others were a bit harsher and said that the game was destined to go this way based on how hit was handled and the experience that was there from the beginning.

For those keen on more Final Fantasy 7 experiences, this is the year that Square Enix said it plans to release the second part of the remake. There's a third part coming, too, but we don't yet know anything about when that one will be out.