With Final Fantasy VII Revelation set to complete the remake trilogy soon, fans have been eagerly revisiting FFVII’s various releases and spinoffs in anticipation, speculating about what the future might hold for the finale. Unfortunately, one of those spinoffs, the live-service game Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, now has a Doom timer attached to it–meaning you’ll need to play it as quickly as possible before it shutters if you want to see what it has to offer.
Released on December 2023, Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is a free-to-play downloadable title for mobile and PC. The game recreates the events of Final Fantasy VII–as well as spinoffs like Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, and the feature-phone exclusive Before Crisis–while giving new spins on established story beats, serving as a sort of alternative remake. It also features an all-new story about a group of SOLDIERs with a young Sephiroth. Many of the original staff, including original writer Katsushige Nojima and creative director Tetsuya Nomura, were also heavily involved in Ever Crisis’s creation, lending it more clout as more than just a generic mobile spinoff.
While the game is free to download, it used the popular gacha system as its means of monetization, with players being able to spend money to buy in-game crystals to use to draw random gear. We say that in the past tense, because Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis has been confirmed to be shuttering on October 6th, giving players around 3 more months to enjoy the game before it goes offline. All real money transactions have been suspended as a result of the impending shutdown.
In a Producer’s Letter published alongside the shutdown notice, Shoichi Ishikawa details the reasons for the shutdown. “While we recognize that many people are playing EVER CRISIS, it has become difficult to find a balance between production costs and the demand for character weapons and gear,” he writes.
“At the same time, delivering satisfying equipment visuals remains a priority for us as it’s something players see the characters wearing, and we understand how passionate the community and fans are about the FINAL FANTASY VII characters.
Ultimately, however, striking an ideal balance between visual quality and development costs, while also maintaining gameplay balance that encouraged greater party diversity, presented ongoing challenges.”
The shutdown comes at a rather awkward time, as a characters introduced in Ever Crisis, like Glenn Lodbrok, have crossed over into the remake games, and Ever Crisis’s shutdown means that players won’t have an easy way to dig deeper into their lore once it’s offline. We can only hope that Square-Enix might take inspiration from the recent Final Fantasy Resonance and find some alternative way to bring Ever Crisis’s unique stories to players in the future