Final Fantasy XI coming to smartphones, ending PS2 and Xbox 360 support

By Kris Wouk March 19, 2015

final fantasy xi heads to smartphones — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Few MMORPGs still exist from the days before World of Warcraft came along and claimed most of the market, but Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XI is one of them. While MMOs are flagging in popularity, mobile games continue to churn out piles of cash, so it makes sense that Final Fantasy XI is headed to smartphones, Kotaku reports.

More specifically, two games based on Final Fantasy XI are coming to smartphones. The first, Final Fantasy XI Mobile, is exactly what it sounds like: a straight port of Final Fantasy XI. The second is a spinoff, titled Final Fantasy Grandmasters.

Both games are the result of a partnership between Square Enix and a different third-party developer. Final Fantasy XI Mobile is being developed together with MMO giant Nexon, while mobile developers Crooz are working on Final Fantasy Grandmasters.

While both games are set in the same world of Vana’diel, Final Fantasy Grandmasters is less epic in scope than its namesake, focusing more on a quick pick-up-and-play experience. The game will feature monsters from Final Fantasy XI, and several of the battle abilities should be familiar to players of the venerable MMO as well.

Alongside the announcement of a new platform for Final Fantasy XI, Square Enix also announced that the game would be winding down on two other platforms. Both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 games will shut down roughly one year from now in March 2016. The PC version of the game will continue to be supported, however.

Final Fantasy XI Mobile is set to launch in Japan, North America, Europe and South Korea in 2016, but we’ll see Final Fantasy Grandmasters sooner than that. A beta for the game has been announced for this spring, though whether it will make its way out of Japan isn’t yet clear.

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Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

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