Final Fantasy 14 Mobile is in the works at Tencent | Tech Reader

The wildly popular MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 is coming to mobile thanks to an upcoming port from Tencent.

Final Fantasy 14 Mobile is set to replicate the core experience in a new “mobile-friendly format.” Details are scarce right now, but both combat and non-combat features will be replicated for the port, along with visual elements like weather patterns.

Like other mobile ports, it appears you can play Final Fantasy 14 Mobile as an alternative to the main title, as the press release states that “veteran players can look forward to a nostalgic journey in a new format, while new players can experience the allure of Eorzea for the first time.” There isn’t a release window just yet, but it’ll be out in China first before expanding to other regions.

“It has been 11 years since FF14 2.0: A Realm Reborn launched, and this new mobile game will be a sister to FF14, aiming to recreate the grandeur of the original’s story and combat mechanics on mobile devices,” game director Naoki Yoshida said in a press release.

Tencent is a leader in the mobile games space, not only with first-party titles, but in terms of co-developing mobile ports of other top games like PUBG Mobile (Lightspeed co-developed it with Krafton), Black Desert Online, and Call of Duty: Mobile.

While the Final Fantasy 14 MMO we know of today (the original was widely panned) was originally a PC exclusive, it has expanded to other platforms over the past decade.  Square Enix and PlayStation have a long-standing relationship with multiple console exclusives, so it’s on PlayStation consoles. However, Square Enix got the game on Xbox Series X/S this year, and promised more of its games would be coming to Xbox moving forward. With the mobile announcement, that leaves the Nintendo Switch as the only mainstream gaming console without the MMO.

Best of all, Final Fantasy 14 is cross-platform, so you can play with friends regardless of your platform preference. It hasn’t been clarified if this applies to mobile, but considering all the limitations of the platform and how wildly different the experience will be with a touchscreen versus a controller or mouse and keyboard, it’s unlikely. Other Tencent games like Call of Duty: Mobile also don’t support cross-platform with console or PC, although it does for iOS and Android.