The Final Fantasy XIV successor was hinted at pretty heavily in a recent Square Enix survey. We recently covered how the publisher and developer have released its annual Square Enix Player Survey 2018, which we totally recommend any fan check out now. However, as with any survey, there are some juicy details we can glean from its contents. The most notable of these are references to FFXIV.
As of right now, the only major Final Fantasy games in active development are Final Fantasy XIV with its continued improvements and upcoming expansion, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. The latter is one that notoriously hasn’t had a ton of information recently, while the former is one that we always have new info for. With only those two games known, that leaves the future pretty wide open.
It has been some time since Final Fantasy XV released so it’s certainly plausible that the next mainline game is probably in active development now. Oddly enough, though, the survey didn’t tackle that topic at all. Instead, it focused on a sequel to Final Fantasy XIV. The first and more ambiguous clue is that 14 random survey participants will win up to $500 to spend in the Square Enix store.
Interesting number, huh? But certainly not enough to mean anything. What is surprising are a group of questions near the middle of the survey that focuses on the Final Fantasy series. It asks the expected question of “what would you like to see in the future?” before focusing on Final Fantasy XIV alone. It inquires if you’ve played the game before and what you think of it compared to other MMO’s.
After that, it asks your interest level in another Final Fantasy MMO that isn’t Final Fantasy XIV. This is very specific in comparison to everything else in the survey and intriguing. Given that Final Fantasy XI was the first MMO in the series and XIV followed it, if Square Enix follows the naming conventions, XVII would be the next MMO. Given that, as we said before, XVI is probably in development right now, it isn’t far-fetched to think that Final Fantasy XVII Online could be in early stages right now.