The amount of support that Final Fantasy XI gets in a declared maintenance mode is in and of itself surprising, but that is apparently not surprising enough for the game’s 20th anniversary. No, the developers shared recently that the team is focusing on something new within the next fiscal year with an emphasis on the long-term goal for that aforementioned anniversary, and that’s with the goal of something large-scale and unexpected for the game as a whole.
As a corollary, there’s the expectation that individual version updates for the game on its monthly update cadence may feel somewhat smaller while the game prepares for this surprise; then again, monthly updates for a game in maintenance mode is already better than many non-maintenance mode games get in terms of content, so we’re betting that most fans will be happy for the longer term. Combine that with a promise to streamline and simplify the client download process, and players should be looking forward to whatever happens for the game’s next big update, although considering it’s due out for May of 2022, we expect it’ll be a bit of a wait.
