When Spec Ops: The Line was released in 2012, military shooters were still at the height of their power. Just shy of five years on from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, to make a military shooter during this Imperial Phase was typically presented as an objective search for authenticity draped in the flag of solemn respect for the troops, a dual approach designed to avoid uncomfortable questions around the genre’s obeisance to and glorification of the military-industrial complex.

In stark contrast to its contemporaries, Spec Ops refused to shirk uncomfortable questions. It takes for granted that it’s a bit f***ed up to enjoy video game violence. Then it goes a step further: It seems to actively despise its own existence. Over the course of its single-player campaign, Spec Ops: The Line is unwavering in its commitment to the idea that not only is the protagonist of a military shooter a psychopath, but that our demand for and enjoyment of them reveals something deeply ugly about our culture.

Developed by German studio Yager Development, who had previously made the sci-fi flight combat game Yager (2003), and published by 2K Games, Spec Ops: The Line tells the story of Captain Martin Walker, the playable character, and his two squadmates, Sergeant John Lugo and Lieutenant Alphonso Adams, a Delta Force team on a recon mission into the heart of sandstorm-devastated Dubai. They are attempting to make contact with Colonel John Konrad, commander of the 33rd Infantry Battalion, who had been leading relief efforts in the city until the storm severed all communication and the UAE government designated Dubai a “no man’s land.”Konrad’s name is an on-the-nose reference to Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, the late 19th century novel that critiqued imperialism and provided the inspiration for the Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now.

Walker and company are sent to investigate after a radio message finally emerges from the dust-shrouded city: “This is Colonel John Konrad, United States Army. Attempted evacuation of Dubai ended in complete failure. Death toll… too many.” When they arrive, the trio find themselves caught up in a three-way struggle for power between Konrad loyalists, a splinter group of 33rd soldiers who mutinied against Konrad, and the CIA-backed locals trying to drive Konrad–and indeed every American–out of their city. What began as a straightforward rescue quickly becomes more complicated. As events evolve, and facts continue to slip from their grasp like sand between fingers, Walker, Lugo, and Adams try to remind themselves that they must stick to the mission. “Anybody think we should try talking to these guys again? I mean, we did come here to save them,” says Adams. But, gradually, as the bodies continue to pile up, inevitably they find themselves unable to discern what that mission is. “Man, we are way past that point,” replies Lugo.

As a third-person shooter, Spec Ops adopts many of the gameplay features of the genre. In this sense, it adheres to the formula and resists experimentation. Walker will stick to cover with a press of a button in much the same way as Gears of War popularized some years earlier. Similarly, you aim with left trigger and shoot with right trigger. Holding A sees Walker sprint, B vaults over cover, X hits enemies in melee range, and Y tosses a grenade. Squad commands are minimal and context-sensitive; you can tell Lugo and Adams to prioritize specific targets with the tap of a button, but otherwise they pretty much get on with the job of doing very little and leaving the shooting to you.

Mechanically, it must be said, Spec Ops: The Line is competent but not particularly interesting. Where it is notable, however, is in its narrative and in its critique of the broader medium. That’s partly what drew video game critic Brendan Keogh to write a book about it. In 2012, some months after the release of the game, he published “Killing Is Harmless,” a 50,000-word critical reading of Spec Ops: The Line. Keogh wrote it to explore how Yager questions why we enjoy video game violence and the way players can consider their own complicity in perpetrating virtual war.

“What I found interesting about Spec Ops wasn’t just what it said about video games and violence, but how it said it,” Keogh tells me over email, a decade later.

“It can’t really be boiled down to any one twist moment like BioShock’s ‘Would you kindly’ moment, but rather it’s in how the game systems, visual tropes, and character development slowly shift over the time. An action at the start of the game and the same action at the end of the game can feel radically different because of broader contextual shifts in the narrative and visual presentation.”

As Walker, Lugo, and Adams journey deeper into Dubai’s “heart of darkness” and their mission dissolves before their very eyes, they begin to fray. Physically, the three of them bear the scars of their experience. Blood stains, torn clothing, and deep wounds are depicted as permanent changes to their character models. Their physical actions become more ragged; melee attacks transform from swift knockouts to brutal pummellings. Likewise, the cool detachment of their early communications boils over into hoarse screams of “Reloading!” and streams of curse-laden epithets. By the end of the game, these men are entirely untethered, not only from their original mission but from reality itself.

“It was these gradual transitions that fascinated me about the game and which I wanted to capture,” explains Keogh. “It felt like the only way to do that was to narrate an entire playthrough in a way that drew attention to those subtle transitions and shifts in tone. I definitely didn’t have plans to ‘write a book about a videogame’ before I played it. It was just the right format to explore what I wanted to explore about that game.”

Spec Ops arrived at a time when commercial video games, from both major publishers and independent developers, were self-consciously reflecting on the nature of being a video game. Not just BioShock (2007) and its famous “Would you kindly…” line, but games such as Braid, The Stanley Parable, Nier, Far Cry 2, even Portal were exploring what player agency meant in a video game, its strengths and its shortcomings, and the types of experiences the idea engenders. Perhaps more than any of them, Spec Ops: The Line wanted to reject the concept of video games as power fantasy.

“Those games were really pushing against a very dominant mode of presenting video games in games culture and marketing that essentially boiled down to the customer or player is always right,” Keogh says.

“For decades, alongside this masculinizing of video game culture, video games became these power fantasies where ‘interactivity’ and ‘agency’ empower the player to be the most powerful agent in the world, to make meaningful choices, to save the world, etc. You see it shot through video game marketing in the 1990s and 2000s in particular. Games like Spec Ops, Bioshock, Stanley Parable, were a whole wave of games that essentially asked what if the player isn’t actually all powerful?”

Keogh posits that games are essentially about following rules and doing what you are told. Sure, you have freedom, as the marketing is always keen to emphasize, but it’s always a restricted freedom, the specifics of which that same marketing is less eager to detail. Spec Ops: The Line and the abovementioned games of that late ’00s and early ’10s era were pushing back on a normative way of thinking about game design and aesthetics that was really meaningful and valuable. But a decade later that work has been done.

“We kinda know that now,” says Keogh. “These days, it’s not nearly as exciting and revolutionary to suggest that maybe the player isn’t all powerful. Without considering the historical context, games like Spec Ops and BioShock almost seem a bit naff and basic in their critique.

“Since then,” he argues, “we’ve had a decade of independent and alternative gamemakers, not least of all the various queer devs working with Twine, who have radically upended what we thought we knew about how video games express ideas and how players and video games work together in different ways. A triple-A game going, ‘Gee, what if militaristic violent power fantasies are bad actually’ isn’t quite as provocative these days.”

Still, that shouldn’t diminish the work that was done. Replaying Spec Ops: The Line today, for all that much of its moment-to-moment action feels formulaic, it’s still shocking the extent to which the game wants the player to recoil from this idea of video game as power fantasy. At the time of release, a common criticism directed at The Line from reviewers and players was that the game’s critique of video game violence didn’t allow the player the option to not perform that violence.

But such a take only perpetuates the very idea The Line wants to criticize. It is not merely vital to the critique of video game violence that The Line is itself a relentlessly violent game, but it is utterly essential to the power fantasy critique that for the player there is no escape, no reprieve, no power to pause and select a different option. Other than turning the game off, of course.

While Keogh agrees that this criticism misses the point, he has sympathy for another common argument leveled against the game.

“A more persuasive critique to me was that telling the player they should feel bad for enjoying violence,” he says. “Or [telling the player] that they are ‘the real monster’ really just shifts the blame for these sorts of militaristic games existing onto the individual consumer when the publisher and the studio decided to make the military video game in the first place, right? It’s like an airline company blaming their passengers for climate change.”

This tension is most evident in the loading screens. As in any game, The Line’s loading screens contain a sentence or two of text to give the player something to do while they’re waiting for the next area to load. What start out as conventional gameplay tips (“Lugo’s sniper training allows him to dispatch long-range targets”) or basic plot details (“Rumors claim Konrad is still alive and hiding somewhere in Dubai”) give way to commentary on the game itself. During the latter half of the game, even the loading screens offer no relief from the horror and suffering:

“Dubai’s harbor was filled with sand when storms first wracked the city. The corpses were your doing.”

“Do you feel like a hero yet?”

“If you were a better person, you wouldn’t be here.”

Rather than merely scolding the player for doing the only things the game allows them to do, the loading screens perhaps also reveal some of Yager’s own frustration at having little to no choice about working on the project, something that Keogh felt he detected in conversations with members of the team.

“I think what’s fascinating is to consider the development context of the game. A new video game in the Spec Ops franchise was going to exist one way or the other. The publisher wanted it to! And this studio, Yager, had to make it to get the money to stay afloat.

“What’s fascinating about Spec Ops is you can feel the frustration of the developers themselves of having to make this basic military shooter. There’s an anger in it, a contradiction in how it hates itself. I don’t think it’s simply offsetting blame for the whole military-entertainment complex onto players. I think it’s a collective cry of frustration from a team of developers for having to make a game like this in the first place. It’s so rare that the personality of the developers is so visible in a triple-A game, and the way those contradictions and emotions feel baked into the very design of the game is so fascinating to me.”

Midway through Spec Ops: The Line, there’s a now-infamous scene where Walker, Lugo, and Adams sneak up on a camp where they are heavily outnumbered by the 33rd. They take out a guard and discover that his lookout houses a launcher and supply of white phosphorous. This exchange follows:

Adams: “This might help.”
Walker: “Fine. Set it up.”
Lugo: “You’re fucking kidding, right? That’s white phosphorus!”
Walker: “Yeah, I know what it is.”
Lugo: “You’ve seen what this shit does…”
Adams: “We might not have a choice, Lugo.”
Lugo: “There’s always a choice!”
Walker: “No. There’s really not.”

There really isn’t a choice. You can ignore the white phosphorous and open fire on the soldiers below using conventional arms, but their numbers keep replenishing while your ammo does not. Eventually you will die if you don’t use it.

So you flick on the laptop connected to the targeting drone and watch the muted, black and white feed from above. You move a targeting reticule around the screen, pull the trigger and Walker instructs Adams to fire the launcher. A moment later white clouds appear on the screen, accompanied by the shouts and screams of the victims below. This view doesn’t change for the length of the two-minute sequence. You can’t look up or look around or close the laptop.

It’s a scene reminiscent of the AC-130 mission from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. However, while that game chose to focus on the cold detachment of a war fought at the distance of a drone, all-too-easily interpreted as approval for the professional and efficiency of the modern American military, The Line offers no such relief. Instead, it rubs your face in the very atrocity you’ve wrought.

As the scene continues you eventually notice that the focus has shifted subtly, or perhaps you only just notice it for the first time, but you realize that you’re no longer looking at just targets on a screen. You’re looking at Walker’s face reflected back off the monitor. You’re staring into his eyes as you target another group of the 33rd in the camp below and calmly tell Adams to kill them in a cruel and horrifying manner. You realize you’re staring at yourself.

“We need to keep moving,” Walker says after the smoke clears on the camp and the charred bodies of dozens of civilians caught in the white phosphorous rain are revealed.

Walker’s fragile mental state continues to deteriorate as he closes in on Konrad, still perhaps clinging to the belief that this one man was responsible for every horror that has happened since arriving in Dubai. Hallucinations, dream sequences, repeating scenes pile up until it’s impossible to discern what’s real in this completely unreal video game.

“None of this would have happened if you’d just stopped,” Konrad tells Walker near the very end. But they didn’t stop. They couldn’t stop. Yager couldn’t stop. And neither could you.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Lego Brawls looks like it belongs among the resurgence of side-scrolling, cartoonish fighting games that have recently cropped up to join the ranks of Nintendo’s beloved Super Smash Bros. series. But expecting it to be much of a fighting game, with all the complexity that entails, would be a mistake. Lego Brawls is more accurately described as the items side of a Smash Bros. fight–a whole lot of unpredictable, intense chaos, with a fairly low skill ceiling and a high degree of approachability.

We played a few rounds of Lego Brawls at Summer Game Fest, including both its single-player and couch co-op matches. In single-player, you go into eight-player matches, which can also be played online, where two teams fight their way through different Lego-themed locations, bashing each other and trying to capture specific spots on the map in order to earn points. It’s similar to Smash Bros. and other fighting games in its presentation and map design, but that’s about all.

In terms of the actual experience, Lego Brawls is more about embracing chaos. Each player gets a melee object they can bash opponents with, a dash for getting away from incoming beat-downs, and a double-jump for getting around. You have a health meter that determines how much of a wallop you can take, but melee fights generally are pretty simplistic–your real goal is to find items. As in a Smash Bros. game, certain items randomly spawn around the map, giving you weapon power-ups of three different classes, each better than the last.

The items provide access to better gear, which you determine with your loadout. For instance, I choose a plunger as my melee weapon, and an alien blaster, ice cream truck, and dragon as the other items in my loadout. I don’t get access to those other weapons until I find the items in the map, allowing me to call out my ice cream truck, say, and drive it around the map. The truck has armor, offering extra protection from attacks, and hits harder than my plunger, but it only lasts a limited time. So the idea is that you’re hoping to find items that give you access to your best gear so you can turn the tides of a battle, or blast away at some other player’s better weapons and keep them from crushing your team.

The inclusion of those items means that every fight is a nonsensical combination of ludicrous elements, like space ships, horseback knights, giant robots, and whatever else might exist in the various Lego sets that make up Brawls. Playing alone, I took part in an eight-player match against the AI, but even with non-humans, the whole thing created a delightful storm of nonsense. Brawls’ controls don’t require a ton of skill to play or excel with, but the game makes up for that approachability by forcing you to anticipate, strategize around, and deal with a bunch of goofy mayhem.

Though you have multiple items at your disposal for your loadout, they’re equalized by tier–so while my dragon could breathe fire, it was no more powerful than whatever another player might equip into that same spot, like a spaceship. By the same token, my melee plunger is equal to a glowing green alien sword. The ice cream truck plays different from another item you might choose in its place, but it doesn’t give you an advantage over other players’ choices, which allows you to pick items based on aesthetics and play style. In fact, you’re encouraged to get pretty ridiculous with your weapon and character choices.

Finding items that let you use the special weapons in your loadout gives you an advantage against opponents, while also creating a lot of fun chaos.

As you play through Lego Brawls, you’re always earning experience points that unlock pieces from various Lego sets. When you start, whether alone or with friends, you choose a Lego “theme,” and your play time then goes to unlocking pieces from that particular theme. A few we saw included classic Lego sets like Castle and Space, as well as newer ones such as Ninjago and Jurassic Park. That last set was the only licensed theme that popped up during our play time, and it’s unclear whether you can expect to see other licensed sets in the future. But there definitely will be more themes, all of which will be free, and which can come into the game either as updates or limited-time offerings for different in-game events.

The themes added what was possibly the most fun aspect of Lego Brawls–creating an absolutely idiotic character with which to smack around your friends. I built an awful-looking clown-cowboy hybrid wielding a deadly plunger, complete with the horse the cowboy should be riding, which was more like a horse-shaped apron that my clown wore on his chest. Editor Jordan Ramee, on the other hand, quickly put together some kind of scarred and scary pirate character wielding a pair of melee cheerleading pom-poms. And the aforementioned Jurassic Park set included all the characters from that franchise’s movies, including the shirtless Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm. You can take pieces from any character or set and mix them together, so while I made a clown cowboy, I absolutely wish I had constructed a hot shirtless clown chaotician.

Maybe the best part of Lego BRawls is how wild you can go with customizing your Minifig character.

While the larger eight-player matches are relegated to single-player or online play, couch co-op fights are smaller free-for-all bouts with up to four players. Our match, in a tightly built volcano that had the same vibes as Smash’s Planet Zebes level, did away with our loadout weapons because of the smaller scale. Instead, each map has its own specific items you can find scattered around the arenas. The volcano sported bows that offered a significant range advantage, and horses you could ride to plow through your opponents. Ultimately, though, it was the lava that proved our worst opponent–although video producer Dave Klein was a formidable foe as well, ultimately besting both the rodeo clown and pirate cheerleader.

Lego Brawls isn’t likely to replace other couch co-op fighting games, but it doesn’t need to. Instead, it provides an over-the-top take on party gameplay all its own, made all the more enjoyable by its ridiculous customization options. You might not spend hours learning characters and perfecting combos, but Lego Brawls seems like it’ll provide a good time with friends, especially those who aren’t hardcore gamers. Look for it on Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on September 2.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Few MMORPGs last as long as Final Fantasy XI, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in May. 20 years of active service is a monumental achievement for any online game, but especially one built upon the hardcore design of pre-World of Warcraft MMOs that remains strictly subscription-based.

And yet, Final Fantasy XI shows no signs of stopping any time soon, even as Square Enix’s other MMO, the award-winning Final Fantasy XIV, continues to rise in popularity.

In fact, Final Fantasy XI’s player base has grown in the last few years, and until recently it was Square Enix’s most-profitable Final Fantasy game (a title Final Fantasy XIV now holds as of 2021). In the months leading up to the 20th anniversary celebration, Final Fantasy XI even received all-new gameplay systems like the new Master Levels for post-game players, and the ongoing “Voracious Resurgence” questline, which is the first new story content the game has seen in years.

To get more insight into Final Fantasy XI’s continued success, GameSpot interviewed Final Fantasy XI producer Akihiko Matsui and director Yoji Fujito about the game’s 20th anniversary, its enduring legacy, and the possibilities for the future of this beloved MMORPG. Translations were provided by Square Enix.

GameSpot: I’ve heard that the initial expectations were that Final Fantasy XI may only be active for a few years. Now, 20 years later, the game still has a passionate playerbase. Are you surprised the game has lasted this long? Why do you think FFXI remains so popular?

Akihiko Matsui, Producer: Thanks to our players, we were able to celebrate our 20th anniversary. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone at GameSpot, as well as their readers. Our game may seem rather old-fashioned and slow-paced nowadays, but perhaps many subsequent MMORPGs have evolved too systematically and are unable to offer fresh experiences despite being new, which I believe may be why players are considering Final Fantasy XI among their options. It isn’t the most user-friendly game, but we are helped by the fact that FFXI players are experts when it comes to enjoying the game.

Yoji Fujito, Director: First of all, I’m relieved to have celebrated our 20th anniversary safe and sound. The years flew by as we perpetually brainstormed our updates for the game and how to go about fulfilling our adventurers’ desire for adventure, and our 20th anniversary had arrived before we knew it. To be honest, I still can’t believe it’s been 20 years, because it feels as if we just celebrated our 10th and 15th anniversaries just the other day.

So, my reaction to being told, “It’s been 20 years!” is mostly “What? No way!” Regarding why the game has lasted this long, I believe it’s because new content and adjustments are being released on a regular basis, which have been helping in keeping the community engaged.

Speaking from personal experience, I have noticed more new players both in-game and on social media over the past couple years. Certainly some of that may be a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and crossover appeal with Final Fantasy XIV, but the game has seen a boost in popularity among YouTubers and Twitch streamers as well. What do you make of popular North American content creators like Maximillian Dood and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins going back to the game in recent years?

Matsui: As you’ve pointed out, the data seems to indicate the boost was a result of people staying home due to COVID-19, but we also saw an influx of Western players returning to FFXI a little before that as well. There may have been other reasons, but I believe streamers made a significant impact in that aspect.

I can only imagine what motivated these streamers to play FFXI, but if I were to guess, FFXI’s battles are slower-paced compared to other modern MMORPGs and therefore suitable for chatting while playing, and may also have been a great way for old-school players to show off their expertise to newcomers.

Part of the 20th anniversary celebration includes the new title track “We Are Vana’diel.” Can you tell us about the decision to add new title music to the game and how the song came to be?

Fujito: The development team wanted to implement something for the 20th anniversary that would have an obvious significance from a meta perspective as well. So apart from holding the limited-time anniversary event, we decided to increase the number of title tracks, something we’d previously only updated with each expansion.This I entrusted to our sound director, Naoshi Mizuta. All I’d told him at the time was, “Please compose a marching song worthy of being called ‘Vana’diel March Ver.20th,'” but the quality of the music he delivered was far beyond what I had imagined.

He apparently composed it based on the idea that Vana’diel is shaped not only by the developers but by everyone involved with FFXI, the selfsame concept that is symbolized in the name of the 20th anniversary special site, “WE ARE VANA’DIEL.” We also went with Mizuta’s suggestion to title this rendition of Vana’diel March as “We Are Vana’diel,” which couldn’t have been more appropriate for the song.

Final Fantasy XI was a groundbreaking MMO in many ways, and was even the first MMO where PC and console players could adventure together. What do you think is Final Fantasy XI’s most important contribution to the MMO space?

Matsui: I’m not aware of whether FFXI contributed anything that stood out compared to other MMORPGs. But if I had to name something, I’d say that it brought Final Fantasy to MMORPGs; in other words, it established a style of games that strongly emphasizes narrative, and includes cutscenes (dramatic scenes) as part of the experience even if they make other players wait for the game to start. We took on many other challenges as well, but it is unclear if they had any impact. In particular, I believe it’s important for developers to maintain responsibility for operations and updates, but unfortunately this style doesn’t seem to have had much traction.

Final Fantasy is known for its powerful storylines and relatable characters, and Final Fantasy XI is no exception. I am especially a fan of the Chains of Promathia and Wings of the Goddess expansions. Which storyline is your favorite?

Matsui: I like Treasures of Aht Urhgan, which allowed us to add jobs that were unique from a system perspective. We actually had a change of staff members in charge of the story starting with Treasures of Aht Urhgan which had me worried during development, but in the end they were able to create a very wonderful story and characters. My favorites are Aphmau and the Serpent Generals. Oh, and we can’t forget President Naja!

Fujito: Personally, I like Wings of the Goddess. The series of main stories about Lilisette are spectacular, of course, but I’m especially fond of the stories surrounding the past of San d’Oria, Bastok, and Windurst, which evoke nostalgia and filled in the blanks I was curious about. The music in the past areas also have a subtle melancholy to their melodies, making the album for this series the one I’ve listened to the most.

While the game has seen numerous expansions and updates that add major new features like the Trust AI party members or new combat mechanics, I have to imagine plenty of ideas were left on the cutting room floor. Can you tell us about any of the ideas wanted to include but couldn’t?

Matsui: To this day, I’d like to include tutorials and other elements that are common in modern MMORPGs but wouldn’t significantly alter FFXI itself. Before launch, we dreamed of a system that would enable users to create their own quests and missions, so that they could continue to play with new quests and missions indefinitely. As an element that might be necessary to make such an idea a reality, I also had ideas for a feature that would allow players to place objects on the field.

One of the most important parts of Final Fantasy XI’s legacy is its influence on Final Fantasy XIV. Obviously FFXI and FFXIV are two very different games, but fans often compare the two nonetheless. What is it like having two MMOs in the same franchise?

Matsui: The assumption very, very early on was that Final Fantasy XIV would inherit FFXI’s customers, after which FFXI would quietly end its role. However, the standards for MMORPGs during the launch of FFXI and FFXIV were too different, and the games ended up with very distinct styles. If FFXIV had been a straightforward upgrade to FFXI, I believe there would’ve been no qualms with terminating FFXI’s service.

Both games have large crowds of dedicated fans and are profitable, so I don’t see a problem with the current situation. At a time when few game companies are operating MMORPGs, I personally think it’s pretty awesome that we’re developing and operating three major MMORPG titles, including Dragon Quest X.

Many players look back fondly on the “Level 75-era” of the game. Have you ever considered adding “classic” servers like other long-running MMOs like World of Warcraft, or adding optional content level caps for players that want to experience Final Fantasy XI gameplay from that time?

Matsui: I’m skeptical about classic servers, especially because I don’t think they’re viable from a business standpoint.

For example, in the case of FFXI, the cost of setting up and running a classic server would require us to charge a much higher fee for it than the main service. While it’s very understandable that someone might want to take a quick look back at the experiences of the time, but the cost is just too high. As such, we hope players can continue to enjoy the current service. On the other hand, if players are looking to challenge certain content at the maximum level of the time, I believe that would be something worth considering.

Another popular MMO, Dragon Quest X, recently announced an offline version of its game. Do you think Final Fantasy XI could work as an offline version to keep it ongoing in the future? I know many players would appreciate having a way to experience the story and world in a different way.

Fujito: We understand the demand for offline versions and remakes, as we’ve received requests for them from various parts of the community. Doing so, however, would simply mean that the game would become something else entirely, and would not be a recreation of FFXI as players have envisioned it.

I myself am concerned that this will be the only title in the Final Fantasy series that cannot be enjoyed once the service inevitably comes to an end sometime in the distant future. How to preserve the game separately from the main service is a major topic that needs to be considered, but at least for now while the service is still active, I hope players will enjoy Vana’diel in its present form.

Thank you again for taking the time to speak with us!

Matsui: Thank you for this opportunity. We have had an increase and return of Western users for several years now, and that has been a tailwind for the FFXI team. It would be wonderful if you could continue to take on the role of communicating with the Western FFXI community. I would like to sincerely thank all the Western gamers who were playing alongside me back when I was playing EverQuest who showed me just how much fun MMORPGs could be.

Fujito: Thank you too, for giving us the opportunity to do this interview!

I have been working on this title for 20 years, but it feels like only a few years ago when the service started. Before I knew it, I was married and my children were in elementary school. And when I celebrated my birthday the other day, I realized that exactly 40% of my life has been involved in the development and operation of this title.

In this way, I feel as if FFXI is truly a part of myself. I’ve grown alongside FFXI and will cherish it for a long time to come. I hope you will maintain your interest in FFXI. Thank you very much.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News