What happened when a games sucks so much that even patches and updates couldn’t save it? Make a new one? As crazy as it sounds, that was the decision Square Enix took once they found out their MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV was going to be terrible at launch.
The period during the launch of Final Fantasy XIII, which received lukewarm reception despite the team invested for so long in a whole new engine, and the disastrous launch of Final Fantasy XIV was a rough point for the Japanese company. Then CEO Yoichi Wada stepped down during this period, and the company predicted an extraordinary loss of 10 billion yen in 2013 due to various restructures to keep it afloat.
But they spared no expenses when it came to salvaging their flagship title, Final Fantasy.
This three-part documentary by Noclip interviewed various individuals that were there to witness the death of the original Final Fantasy XIV, dubbed 1.0 while a new team, now lead by Naoki Yoshida, set to create an entirely new game to replace 1.0 that became A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV.
The feat of creating A Realm Reborn is nothing to scoff at. With a tight schedule of only one and half year of development, alongside the need to keep the original game being improved with patches at the same time sounds like an impossible task. The decision to not just sweep the original game under the rug but rather integrate the transition into the lore was also a bold move. It not only serves as an acknowledgement that the team messed up (and them owning it up by keeping what happened then in the lore), but honoured the players who remained loyal throughout the transition period.
It is noted that the two big projects Square Enix is working on, the Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III, are now being developed with the Unreal Engine rather than an in-house engine. Having most of the good programmers working on the Crystal Tools engine was a main issue on why the original Final Fantasy XIV suffered badly, in particular on how its UI is implemented. Considering that Crystal Tools, the engine that powered Final Fantasy XV, also has its fair share of troubles, it makes more sense on why they have now opted for a third-party engine.
Today, Final Fantasy XIV holds the second highest subscriber numbers for an MMO with more than 5 million players. The game continues to be supported with new expansion in the form of Heavensward in 2015 and the newly released Stormblood.
The whole documentary is worth a watch.