Let's face it: Final Fantasy is not a massive franchise anymore. No matter how many times the vocal minority on social media keeps pushing the narrative that the iconic Square IP can still go toe-to-toe with contemporaries that have actually stood the test of time, the reality is the series just doesn't have the pull it once had.
The recent early reports of Final Fantasy 16's sales on Xbox have been dismal. The game failed to crack even the top 350 most popular games on the platform, with some sites citing that XVI barely managed to sell 22,000 copies in its first week.
Now, granted, it's a port of a two-year-old game released into a dying platform that's slowly being made obsolete as Microsoft is favoring a "play anywhere" approach to its software (PlayStation included), but still, the situation is yet another stark reminder that Final Fantasy has more in common with the likes of Halo than The Legend of Zelda. They are still highly successful and revered, but their status as system sellers, which had every gaming fan looking at them when a new one came around, is now a thing of the past.
click to enlargeDuring its heyday, a new Final Fantasy release was a huge deal for the gaming industry, and sometimes, reached the mainstream. Squaresoft ditching Nintendo and moving into the 3D era with Sony and Final Fantasy 7 is one of the most important moments in gaming history. It made fans wonder what a bigger Final Fantasy would look like once graphics improved to the point where developers could finally envision their dreams without compromise.
We eventually got there with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, having gone through the worst period in franchise history, one that did irreparable damage to the series' perspective.
Over the past two decades, Square Enix has fumbled the Final Fantasy franchise continuously. Even if you believe that the studio redeemed itself as years went on, the reality of the situation is that the likes of FF 13, 14, and 15, at launch, were so poorly received that it deteriorated the brand.
Sure, Square turned it around with 14 Realm Reborn, and it's now one of the most beloved MMOs out there, but you'd have to be fooling yourself if you believe the historic botched launch of its first iteration wasn't an unmitigated disaster. Similar case to 15, which massively disappointed the launch with its vanilla version. The game would surpass 10 million copies thanks greatly to the Royal edition, but by that point, excitement for FF 16 was somewhat mild as a result.
How mild? Earlier in the year it was reported that Final Fantasy 16 had only managed to sell 3.5 million copies since its release in June 2023. Naturally, Square wasn't happy with these numbers.
Even a more successful game like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth failed to meet Square's infamous sales expectations. While no concrete numbers have been shared (usually a bad sign), Square Enix did state the second part of the Remake trilogy underperformed.
According to GamesRadar, Rebirth sold 262,656 physical copies in its launch week in Japan, down from Final Fantasy 16's 336,027, and even much lower than 7 Remake's 702,853 or Final Fantasy 15's 716,649 copies during that same timeframe.
There is a silver lining in Square's and FF's current situation: the Nintendo Switch 2. The company has already stated that maintaining some of its biggest franchises as platform exclusives is not sustainable. The upcoming port of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but more importantly, the release of Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles could help the series return to form.
Down the line, the third part of the Remake series could be the one that reignites interest in Final Fantasy in a big way if it does end up having a multiplatform launch
I don't think Final Fantasy is going anywhere anytime soon, but it's clear that the more Square misses the mark with new titles in the franchise, the harder it'll be for the company to position it as a big hitter in the current gaming landscape.
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