Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Final Fantasy XI remake has been cancelled.





Source: https://news.mtn.co.kr/newscenter/news_viewer.mtn?gidx=2020120913453521144

Here's a quick English translation (as it's in Korean):

Nexon has cancelled the development of 'Final Fantasy 11'. This decision has been made after it went into production for 5 years with the cooperative work with Square Enix. The development team will be placed in Nexon's new major development project teams such as 'Project NGR' and 'Tales Weaver M'.

This decision has been made after the development decision to focus the development resources on promising projects. Now all eyes will be on the new projects that the Nexon group is expecting to preform well such as 'Project NGR'.

On the 9th, a Nexon insider source revealed that "The 'Final Fantasy 11 mobile' development has been confirmed to cancel and the director that led the development team Sim Gi Hoon, has been reassigned to be the director of the 'Tales Weaver M'" and also "the 'Final Fantasy 11 mobile" development team will be dispersed among new development project teams that has cleared the development evaluation process such as 'Tales Weaver M', 'Project NGR', etc."

'Final Fantasy 11 mobile' is a mobile MMORPG game that is based on the IP of the original game 'Final Fantasy XI' by a prominent Japanese game developing company Square Enix. In 2015, Nexon and Square Enix has drawn attention by agreeing to cooperating for a development of a new game using the IP of that game.

They have chosen Unreal engine 4 and started development back in 2016, but the project development didn't sail smoothly. It is known that the development direction has already changed significantly once back in 2018 when it was reassigned to Nexon One Studio (Footnote: One Studio is one of the many subsidiary studios under the Nexon Flag) It was planned to launch in the later half of 2019, but Nexon's development leadership has changed Q3 last year and all of the company's internal project was reevaluated and the launch was postponed.

'Final Fantasy 11' was one of the projects that was unclear if it would make the cut of the evaluation process but it has survived the 1st review process that took place in Q3 of last year. The new general manager for the new development was the newly promoted vice-president Kim Dae Hwon, and assigned director Sim Gi Hoon as the general director for the project.

Director Sim Gi Hoon has the record of being the general director for the mobile MMORPG 'AxE' during his time in Nexon Red. He is one the key personnel in the so-called 'DH line(vice-president Kim Dae Hwon)'. Considering the relationship with Square Enix, the popularity of the IP, etc Nexon didn't want to end the project just yet.

After Director Sim Gi Hoon got involved, it is known that the gameplay has shifted in the direction of combining the RPG and TCG genre. An additional year of development was made but ultimately they decided to end the project.

After the spread of COVID-19, Square Enix has transitioned to a complete work-at-home environment and there are remarks that this had made the cooperation of Nexon and Square Enix even more difficult.

Combining the fact that from Nexon's standpoint they have made their "best" effort, and Sqaure Enix has mobile games that are very successful using the 'Final Fantasy' IP, it is known that both parties didn't have a huge conflict for ending the cooperative IP project after a "cooling-off period".

------

There are like 4 more paragraphs of the article remaining but they're pretty much a repeat of the beginning of the article stating that what the director will do next, what will happen to the development team and basically that they're looking forward to Nexon's new projects being successful.



I couldn't find any additional articles or backup source to confirm this. (The title does say it's "exclusive")

I have no idea if the whole fact is true or not (as there are no official statements from Nexon themselves yet) so please do take this with a grain of salt.

Also if the English grammar is wonky it's probably because I made this translation on the fly so please excuse it :)

0 kommentarer:

Post a Comment

 

Star Wars Gaming news

Lewterslounge © 2009 | Powered by Star Wars Gaming