On September 30, Final Fantasy 14 Mobile shuts down its servers in China, killing any plans for a global expansion. Roughly a week later, Square Enix ends Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis‘ life, bringing to a close a project with a lot of untapped potential. These impending stoppages got me thinking about all the RPGs that have gone the way of the Dodo, doomed forever to an existence confined to people’s memories, “do you remember” pieces, and dead icons.
Final Fantasy alone is responsible for hundreds of hours of delisted content, even if spin-off games like Brave Exvius and Mobius were never held in high esteem by the community. There is a sadness in the knowledge that you will never be able to boot up a specific game again, and it’s a shame so much good work has been largely erased from history. So let’s try to keep the memories of a few of these dead RPGs alive; if nothing else, they should serve as a lesson for the future.
All these games shut down long ago, so this article is a retrospective tribute (in some cases, anyway). That said, if you plan to play Ever Crisis again, do it now.
Also, the word is “officially,” so some of these RPGs might be playable through unofficial means. I’ll include a note if you can still play them in some form.
Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia Was A Fantastic RPG
Square Enix Finally Got A Mobile Game Right, And It Is Now Dead
- Launch Date: February 1, 2017
- End Date: February 29, 2024
- Was It Any Good? Yes. A genuinely great game.
- Any Way To Play It Nowadays? Unfortunately, no. There isn’t a public fan server or custom APK that really lets you play beyond booting up the home menu. Square Enix preserved most of the cutscenes, at least.
As will repeatedly happen over the next few weeks, Square Enix regularly shuts down Final Fantasy games, to the point that any new mobile release feels destined for a premature end. While I believe each of these projects should be preserved, most were pretty bad and mostly served as examples of what to avoid when adapting a popular franchise for Android and iOS.
Surprisingly, the best mobile Final Fantasy RPG came from the subseries that is famously not part of that genre: Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia. Developed by Square Enix and Team Ninja, Opera Omnia beautifully adapted the mainline entry’s real-time arena combat into a turn-based system that can 100% stand alongside the classic Final Fantasy games. The “Bravery” system required the use of non-damage strikes to inflict the “Break” status and manipulate the turn order, all leading to HP attacks.
Unlike modern gacha games, Opera Omnia was incredibly player-friendly, with every character unlocking through story progression and events. Weapons used a gacha system, but they were pretty easy to get since premium currency wasn’t in short supply. The roster featured more than 150 characters across the franchise, bringing together mainstays like Cloud and Squall with lesser-known figures like Kadaj and Type-O‘s students. Even the writing was pretty good, and the characters’ interactions didn’t feel like just cheap fanservice.
Frankly, Opera Omnia‘s death was a genuine tragedy, and the gaming world lost something special on February 29, 2024. Square Enix’s refusal to release an offline mode was infuriating; honestly, the publisher could repackage the game as a solo RPG, and it would probably perform well.
Infinity Blade Trilogy Is Dead But Thriving
The Best iOS RPGs Of All Time, Kept Alive By Fans
- Launch Date: December 9, 2010 (First game)
- End Date: December 10, 2018 (All three games)
- Was It Any Good? All the games are top-notch action RPGs.
- Any Way To Play It Nowadays? Yes, you can play all three games, though not through official means. Infinity Blade 1 and 2 were reverse-engineered into native PC ports. The third entry doesn’t have a PC port, but dedicated players have managed to boot the mobile game using Sideloadly and older iOS versions. It isn’t a flawless option, but the game is at least still playable. You can still play the first two RPGs through a similar method, too.
Unlike Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, which is completely dead in every conceivable way, the Infinity Blade trilogy is only officially unplayable. Opera Omnia ended because it relied on Square Enix’s servers; these games, meanwhile, suffered from outdated software and Apple’s closed ecosystem. All three RPGs were neglected to the point that they couldn’t run on new iOS versions, but they’re still playable with the right software and a player’s willingness to think outside the box.
The Infinity Blade trilogy succeeded because its mechanics are designed around a touchscreen. Rather than turning a screen into a compromised controller, they use an iPhone’s unique features to craft an experience tailor-made for the platform. Chair Entertainment treated your finger as a blade’s edge; for instance, parrying required reading an enemy’s movement and swiping against their action’s trajectory. The combat was great and a true selling point for the series.
Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Is The Ultimate Nightmare Scenario
Killed And Then Killed Again
- Launch Date: April 4, 2007
- End Date: May 24, 2016 (In Japan); January 29, 2014 (In Western Nations)
- Was It Any Good? Flawed but decent. The Western version was worse than the Japanese one, though.
- Any Way To Play It Nowadays? Fan servers exist, so you can still play the game. However, Atlus and Sega sued these attempts in the early 2020s, nuking into oblivion any easy-to-find public versions. Methods still exist, but they are far more complicated to follow.
Considering Atlus’ franchise went truly mainstream with Persona 5, there is a good chance that plenty of players completely missed out on Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, an ambitious MMO that was already dead in Western nations by early 2014. While most franchises disconnected MMOs from their mainline entries, Imagine sought to bridge the gap between the first two SMT games, which feature widely different worlds.
Embracing SMT‘s dark fantasy and sci-fi themes, the developers dropped players into a post-apocalyptic hellscape that has subterranean shelters and on-the-ground ruins. The setting feels oppressive, which makes complete sense for the franchise as a whole. SMT‘s turn-based combat got a real-time makeover that surprisingly kept much of the original’s appeal, including the demon negotiation mechanic.
Atlus abandoned Imagine without an offline version, so community members built playable fan servers, including two of the most famous: ReIMAGINE and COMP-Hack. Atlus and Sega didn’t like that and filed a lawsuit, which essentially killed these accessible ways to play the game and made future endeavors feel illegal.
Darkspore Proves That Single-Player Games Can Die Too
Time For The EA Entry
- Launch Date: April 26, 2011
- End Date: March 1, 2016
- Was It Any Good? Yes, pretty darn good.
- Any Way To Play It Nowadays? Fans have made parts of Darkspore accessible, but the combat isn’t one of them.
All these closures are frustrating in their own right, but Darkspore is the most egregious, as its demise was totally avoidable and completely unnecessary. While mainly known for its 4-player co-op, this action RPG featured a full single-player campaign that basically aped Diablo, albeit with a few neat ideas implemented from Spore.
Although not one of the all-time greats, Darkspore was a solid isometric action RPG that stood out for its three-creature squad system and loot that included body parts as equipment/gear. The gameplay was quite fun, as you could swap between your creatures with the click of a button.
EA implemented always-on DRM, meaning the game had to be constantly online; when the servers shut down, the single-player portion became unplayable, and the physical disc became a paperweight. The funny thing is that Darkspore would probably not be remembered at all if it wasn’t murdered for no good reason; otherwise, it would just be another Diablo-clone that filled the void until Diablo 3‘s release.
Babylon’s Fall Was Always Unplayable
Born A Corpse
- Launch Date: March 3, 2022
- End Date: February 27, 2023
- Was It Any Good? No.
- Any Way To Play It Nowadays? No.
OK, let’s end things with the ultimate cautionary tale: Babylon’s Fall. Square Enix hired one of the greatest developers of single-player action romps, PlatinumGames, to craft a live-service treadmill. Despite seeming like a bad idea from its reveal, this RPG somehow ended up being far worse than anybody could have imagined, to the point of being basically unenjoyable throughout its entire life. In less than a year, Square Enix shut down this disaster, confirming years of wasted resources and time.
I’m not going to pretend that Babylon’s Fall deserved better, as it was an ugly game developed through cynical trend-chasing. However, PlatinumGames was kind of onto something with the Gideon Coffin concept, which let you equip two physical and two spectral weapons at the same time. You attacked with all of them simultaneously, which could have made for a fun combat system for a standard 15-hour adventure.
