Mobile battle royale title Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier is to shut down in January. The game originally launched in November last year, meaning it will have been online for just over a year when it closes its doors. Square Enix says updates will continue until the game's closure, too.
In a blog post on the game's official website, Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier's development team says it hasn't "been able to deliver the experience" it was hoping to deliver and that its player base deserves. As such, the game will end service on January 11th, giving you just a few more months to play the game.
Timeline-wise, the first thing to go is the Shinra Credit currency, which you can no longer buy (although you can still use Shinra Credits in your possession). Support for non-English language will end on November 1st, at which point all text will be shown in English. Finally, Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier will shut down completely on January 11th.
Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier was originally announced back in February last year. Players compete to become Shinra's first Soldier program test subject, with Final Fantasy staples like Bombs, chocobos, and summons like Ifrit and Shiva making appearances. The game was released in November 2021, but evidently didn't make the kind of impact that would have allowed it to stick around.
If you haven't played Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier yet, it's free to play on both Android and iOS, so you might want to give it a download just to see what all the fuss (or lack thereof) is about. Of course, this is far from the end of Final Fantasy VII as a sub-franchise; we've also got the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to look forward to, as well as the forthcoming Crisis Core remaster. Sadly, though, The First Soldier's bid to become one of Shinra's most prized experiments is at an end.
