Square Enix announced on March 19, 2015 that they would be partnering with Nexon to develop a new version of Final Fantasy XI for mobile devices using Unreal Engine 4. Final Fantasy XI Producer Akihiko Matsui called the game an MMMRPG (Massively Multiplayer Mobile Role Playing Game). It was the only announcement at the reveal of “The Vana’diel Project” that didn’t have any supporting media.
Over the next five years, news on the games’ development was scarce. The only images we saw of the game came from Nexon specific sources, such as the Nexon Developer Conference (above) on April 27, 2016. Images also appeared on Nexon’s own recruitment site (below).
The game was originally titled Final Fantasy XI Reboot before changing to Final Fantasy XI Mobile in Nexon’s financial report in May 2018. At this time, the game moved to an internal studio, Nexon One Studio, where the game’s direction under Director Sim Gi Hoon took a turn, and focused on becoming a trading card RPG.
In November 2019, Nexon’s Q3 financial report was released and stated that the title, now referred to as Final Fantasy XI R, was still in the works.
In May 2020 images of the in-development title appeared on an employee’s online portfolio. However, Nexon quickly requested that those images be removed.
In December of 2020, Korean news site MTN reported that the game had been cancelled. According to the report, Final Fantasy XI R made it past its first internal review process in Q3 2019 amongst some uncertainty.
Gamer Escape asked Square Enix for confirmation about the game’s cancelation at this time, but were told “As this is a joint project with Nexon, we are unable to provide an answer to this question at present.”
On February 9, 2021, Nexon President and CEO Owen Mahoney was asked about, and then confirmed the cancelation. He noted that the game had not reached a level that fans would expect from a Final Fantasy title.
Sources: Gamer Escape, Fandom
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