At the launch event for the upcoming Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker expansion, game director Naoki Yoshida announced that Square Enix’s popular MMORPG has recently surpassed 24 million players. In addition, the game managed to become the most profitable game in the series.
Speaking to the press at a digital preview event, Yoshida announced that 11 years after the release of Final Fantasy 14, the number of players reached 24 million. The table that Yoshida shared with the press shows the player count of Final Fantasy 14 in 2015. it showed only 4 million. That number had reached 10 million when the third expansion, Stormblood, arrived in 2017, and doubled over the next four years.
Talking about the difficulties they experienced during the game’s hugely popular debut, Yoshida said, “You all know how tough things were for us in the original Final Fantasy 14. Since then, we’ve managed to turn the game into a production that makes a significant contribution to our company’s profits.”
Indeed, Yoshida states that Final Fantasy 14 is the most profitable game in the series: “It may be a bit unpleasant to say, but we have had great successes in terms of our business. Going forward, we will not hold back on our investments, and our game is one of the games that players love the most. We will continue our efforts.”
The continued success of Final Fantasy 14 is one of the most remarkable comeback stories in the MMORPG world. The 2010 version of the game received serious negative reviews.
The fact that the next expansion will conclude a giant story doesn’t mean Final Fantasy 14 is over. During the presentation, Yoshida talked about the next 10 years and thanked the player base for staying loyal to the game.
Matt TM Kim is the news editor at MRT.
