I had tried the game shortly after it came out, but the touch controls were just so awkward to use that I only played like three matches. Ironically, after I got a new phone I decided to give it another go and managed to connect my PS4 controller to it via Bluetooth. Won my first match with no issues. I strongly believe the game would've faired much better with a PC/console release instead of mobile.

You know what might've helped a lot? Putting it on other platforms and not just mobile.

If it had hit PC and consoles, it would've seen at least modest success.

As one of the main players of the game, Ambassador (who was able to talk with the devs directly), and Championship Winner. I can firmly say they let the game die, even when giving feedback to help the game but feedback wasn’t listened too. I wish the game wasn’t ending but decisions have been made.

I do believe that the mobile only release *was* the issue here... Although I'll speak for myself. While I was bemused about a FFVII Battle Royale, the stuff I've seen afterwards made it look fun albeit different. But one thing stopped me absolutely of playing it at all, even though I did download it: touch controls. I'm not a big fan of them, specially in a shooter. That put me off 100% to not even wanting to try it at all. But if, it had been released on PC or consoles, I would at least have given it a shot, since I prefer the controls. Alas, that was not to be. Shame.

I remember hearing about First Soldier and looking into it not too long after it first released, but my interest quickly evaporated when I found out that it was a mobile exclusive. I have never had a good experience with a 3D mobile action game, and nothing I was seeing suggested that First Soldier would change that. If I had the opportunity to play it on PC with a keyboard and mouse, I would have gladly given it a chance.

I wont lie, i played first soldier alot. I actually had LOADS of fun in it… its a shame it stuck to only phones and that was it. It hurt it dearly… it was such a unique and fun battle royale too

Remember when games were made that couldn't be permanently shut down? Any live service game that gets shut down should probably be required by law to have an offline mode update to preserve it.

If only they listened...

This game really should not have been shackled to mobile. It really could have come into its own if it had a release on bigger, more powerful, more sit-down-and-play platforms.

I was incredible hyped for the game. I spend an incredible amount of time mastering the game during the beta and beyond. Earning nearly all the achievements, including feats that are virtually impossible in other Battles Royales (the worst of which being achievements winning by doing little to nothing). I managed to hit the equivalent of Grand Master, being First Class, and would be eligible for Top 500 if I wasn't a busy professional. Hundreds of hours and ~$240 later (1/6 of that value Playstore points) I'd say the time was worth it. Community was not quirky or toxic, the game ran as well as it could,yet surprisingly not as well on the highest end Android devices, and the predatory Gacha swore me off ever engaging with that ever again (I'd rather pay no more than $10-16 after taxes for an outfit set in any given game). The best feature Battle Royales should adopt is purchasing the first season pass and including the following season pass as an earnable reward. I suggested as much during the beta and they implemented it 😁. Gameplay may be unmatched in other battle Royales and wish it found new life on PC.

They tried to market a battle royal game to a community who had no interest in a battle royal game, of course it failed.

The main issues with how Square Enix handles games like this is that they are restricted to mobile (which turns away a lot of people, regardless of the game's quality), and the fact that they don't listen to the feedback from its player base, even though they offer the option to provide it. The sadder part of it is that it's not just The First Soldier.

I dont understand how, at this point, Square dont understand its audience yet.

People generally don’t like playing Battle Royales on mobile devices and while you could hook something like an Xbox controller up to it it was a somewhat confusing setup for controller players and if I remember correctly there was no way to change the controller inputs to make it feel more comfortable to use. It also didn’t help that this title launched about 2 weeks before Fortnite had a major update with the launch of Chapter 3 Season 1 that a lot of people were looking forward to and it had to compete with Fortnite and while Fortnite is on every console which makes it more accessible with the First Soldier being a mobile exclusive it meant less people would play it. I feel like if the game cam to Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch as well then it could’ve had a much higher player base then what it got.

Fortnite and PUBG players aren't exactly the type to care for RPGs. They tend have totally different tastes altogether. I personally believe that them thinking they could rope battle royale players into checking out RPGs by giving them an RPG flavored battle royale was a flawed if not outright dumb thought process from get go.

Battle royales are an oversaturated market of half assed games where the top few own the market. Shoving out one hoping to milk ff7 nostalgia was a bad call

The overall milking of FFVII is just too much in my opinion. They are other great stories and characters in this series.

The fastest way for me to lose interest in any game is the phrase Mobile Game Only, and thus I hear about the titles that try and fail after it was closed down. That said, being able to actually explore Midgar sounds fun, without the royale element.

First off, great video on First Soldier. I was in the original wave of Ambassadors for the game, and was in the program til the final season. I was there for all the beta tests, and started making guides on my channel to help people get started. FF7, is easily my favourite game of all time and I had such high expectations for this game. I normally hate shooters, and this was the only one I've ever enjoyed. The Amabassador program in theory at the start gave me such hope for this game, as their community representative did a fantastic job at the start communicating with us. But the issue is, things really never got done. I still firmly believe if this game got released on console/PC as well as phone, it would have seen a much better success. It's been very disheartening that they thrown this game in the garbage, but it seems like it had to be done as they didn't want to actually fix any of their issues.

Genuinely speaking i'm not surprised in the slightest as to why it got shut down so fast. I remember when G-bike was announced and it seemed like a neat concept to recreate the minigame from FFVII in modern day, only to never be released outside of Japan and lasting a year as well. The First Soldier seemed cool tbh but the mobile only attachment to it is what pretty much set it to failure instead of expanding to other types of consoles and PC.

Maybe the reason they decided to just shut it down rather than make PC/console versions was because A Team didn't have much expertise in that area. Sounds like they were mobile developers only. I guess Square Enix decided it was better to just pull the plug rather than pay A Team to port it to other platforms they weren't familiar with.

I remembered connecting my ps4 controller to my phone, enjoying the game more and thinking “yeah this would be better on consoles”

First Soldier was my first battle royale games and I had almost no idea what to do. I admit I wasn’t that good, but I did have so much fun with it! I loved playing as Monk and Ninja!!

I didn’t even know this game existed until now. I understand the need to branch out and give different experiences but as a long time FF player I long for the pre FFxiii game experiences. I’ve been more excited by games like SMT V or even the re-release of persona 5 for PC than any FF game. It’s a shame but I still have hold some hope for the series.

preemptively (haven't watched yet) full disclosure, I paid for 2 season passes to get avatars I wanted. 1. no ports 2. too expensive 3. modes too fluid Game was really fun, and Im quite pissed my money was wasted on a game cancelled after 1 year. I expected to play for 3-4 years. At least.

If The First Soldier was released on Consoles and PC as well it would've done a lot better and would've been fairly good competition for current BR games and I would've played it a lot too, a damn shame

Was a great game, the mobile release only killed it, if they would have released it on pc as well it would have found a following

I would have played it if it was more accessible. It's fine to put it on mobile, but at least put it on consoles and pc too. Genshin impact does that and that game does really well. I dont play genshin but that's what they should be aiming for interms of succeeding with a game like this.

The consensus I usually see is that the game was fun and had some novel ideas, but was held back by the mobile exclusive platform. I kind of agree, and I'm surprised they didn't consider something like a steam release. Even Mobius Final Fantasy (another dead FF mobile title) had one and it was better for it.

It was incredibly out of touch for them not to release it on pc and consoles. I never even heard of the game until now and likely would have tried it despite not being into battle royales per se, because of the IP but definitely not going to try battle royale on mobile regardless of what the IP is. SE has fallen so far over the years. It’s sad to see. I’m surprised they didn’t try stuffing it with NFTs before pulling the plug.

A Fortnite clone, that NOBODY wanted or asked for, released solely on mobile phones no less, really was doomed for failure.

I remember trying it, hooking up my bluetooth controller, and being AMAZED at the controls. The way equipment, loots, powers, and even the vehicles worked were all amazing. Sadly the two maps got old quick and it was obvious I was up against bots to fill the lobby.

I think the idea of how the game played was really fun and unique. But their major flaw was that they made it purely for mobile only. When they should have also made it for steam on PC, PS4 and PS5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch with online cross-play and a roll back net code. But I feel Japan is currently behind on the idea of cross play and multi platform releases.

It's a real shame that this game was locked to mobile and never given a real chance to succeed. It's actually very fun. I've played the hell out of it since launch and absolutely love it

This would have had a better chance of surviving with a PC release. I get mobile is big in Japan but SE needs to understand (but never does) that that is not the case overseas. Sure some people play Fortnite on their phone but the majority do not.

All it needed was to be put on steam, ps5, and xbl and it would have lasted.

Biggest problem with this was that it was locked to Mobile... I would've played this a lot on something like my PS4 or my Switch

I just couldn’t understand why it never made it to consoles, the main audience knew it as a PlayStation series so to not put it on the system it’s famous on is bizarre to me Is a shame, I was hoping for a console version as I don’t really play games on my phone

I don't game on my phone, it never works out for me. Anytime something goes to mobile, I'm excluded by default. Whenever SE puts a key title on mobile, they lose me on it.

I have played First Soldier almost every day since release and it's one of my favorite games of all time now. Season 1 was a quite rough, but every update massively improved it and the gameplay and mechanics are incredibly polished at this point. They've added awesome modes like asymmetrical monster vs player battles where one could even battle as Sephiroth, sometimes fighting Cloud and they added objective based modes. The controller support is great and even the touch controls have very extensive options to accommodate personal preferences. I've gotten so many naysayers to try the game and they ended up loving it, including my own family members. It was refreshing to read the letters from the devs and see the transparency and communication between them and the players. The game has so many features I wish games like Apex and CoD would implement. The unique RPG mechanics such as customizing player personality and appearance, vehicles, weapons, etc, and killing monsters to unlock cosmetics was very rewarding. Plus the game actually allows you to EARN so many items, cosmetics and abilities which isn't often seen in free to play games. The game being mobile only essentially killed it before it even had time to expand and it's beyond sad to see it ending soon.

I'm not joking, I honestly didn't even know the game was out already 😳

I tried it, and uninstalled it as fast. If it came out on steam, there could have been an interest for the game.

I hope it doesn’t end like this with Ever Crisis. I mean Dissidia is slowing down a bit in regards of what can be added. I mean they recently added Vaan’s brother Reks to the roster with gladio’s sister, Iris on the way. Not to mention still waiting for more info with kingdom hearts missing link

I played it a lot (a lot for how often I play games these days) and I really enjoyed the experience. I don't think it was a failure in terms of enjoyment but certainly in terms of accessibility. The biggest point being, as seen in a lot of the feedback and comments below, is that it was primarily mobile based. If the game had been released on other platforms then I am sure we wouldn't be in the position we are in now where we have to say goodbye to the First Soldier. The other point I feel is that it was limited to the Final Fantasy VII world specifically. Again, not a failure in terms of enjoyment, but I felt this definitely limited the experience. The First Soldier allowed for a very action based experience fitting with Final Fantasy themes of magic, chocobos, and combat, but to keep that limited to FFVII held the experience back.I would have loved to have seen the Battle Royal experience include maps from other Final Fantasies. A battle royal within Balamb Garden? Yes please! So much potential was not explored and thats why it is closing. Hopefully this will inspire them to look further into it though as I would love to see an expanded FF Battle Royal on a wide range of consoles.

I play it quite often and have enjoyed it, feel it being on pc and consoles would have been better I'm sad to see it go

If it wasn't locked to mobile I would have been a bit more willing to give First Soldier a go at least, but no I never even downloaded it, let alone played. I missed the poll on Ever Crisis you ran too, and while it might be a bit late, I am still excited to download and play that myself.

Me and my friend played this for a good couple months and enjoyed it, probably my favourite battle royale. But with one map, things got really old, real fast, it just ended up being an app on my phone I don't bother with anymore.

I really thought FS was a cool concept for a BR. Had quite a lot to play around with. I personally didn’t stick with it because I thought it would have definitely been better on PC and console. It just didn’t feel right on mobile. I was really hoping it’d have a PC release, but sadly it’s not going to happen.

The main cause is very simple in my opinion, this is not the type of game Final Fantasy fans are looking for to play + Final Fantasy is not exactly the type of series most battle royale players are interested in. It was a clash of worlds, but not in a good way. A console port would've definitely helped tho

What version of final fantasy 7 is the with the rounder graphics and different speech screens?

I was actually very interested in the first soldier. I hate to play on smartphone so i was waiting for a pc or console release. What never happen

If this was released on pc It'd be a hit

I actually love the final fantasy battle royale. It brings a new aspect to it. WIsh they would come over to console and pc to push the game further. Not all games can be alike and that the best part of them but hopefully one day they drive to pc and console as I stated before.

I love this games melee part of its combat as I have won so many games using only melees as they made them actually viable plus there's no other br that plays like ff7fs with its class and materia system

I got so good at this game and enjoyed the maps, spells, classes, and chocobo riding/ breeding so much!! Like, ik a lot didn't but I had the most awesome moments in the game playing from its release and hope for a remake or another square enix FF BR! Climbing the mountains, out playing good players with 1hp left, again the spells and abilities! I'm so saddened by the lack of support and dedication after release!! :'(

I definitely was one of the ones excited for The First Soldier before it launched and was also part of the confused when it was a battle royale. But as a hardcore fan of the series I gave it a chance. I played for quite and while and honestly didn't stop until about half a year ago. The map was usually too huge to find anyone, and it would drain my battery and overheat. So I ended up just dropping it. I was thinking about picking it back up again until I saw the twitter announcement that it was being shut down.

I downloaded it and played the tutorial. I was impressed with the production values, but there was absolutely no way I was going to play the actual game with those touch controls. If it was on PC or consoles, I absolutely would have given it more of a shot, but I can't promise that it would have held my attention. It wasn't exactly my genre of choice.

I had no idea this thing even exited... But as someone who played and loved the original FF7, I've still never even looked at the remake. >__> I am just over remakes in general. Blame Hollywood.

It's a shame. On my tablet with a controller or on a phone with a backbone it is a truly enjoyable experience

I feel this is a shame to be honest. I really enjoyed First Soldier for as long as I played it, being able to explore some Midgar setpieces as our own SOLDIER characters was fun. I definitely think the mobile-only release harmed it as a console or PC port would have made a larger playerbase a lot more fathomable. I know a lot of people disliked the idea entirely but I thought it was a fun game set in a setting I love and would have loved to see it move to larger consoles to become more accessible and easy to play.

I loved the First Soldier, I had to stop playing because a lot of big releases on consoles have been coming out and I was trying to get through my backlog so I could come back to the game later but I see that it won’t survive until then. I will certainly say, this game not being on other platforms greatly stunted it’s potential.

I was really excited and downloaded it immediately, but I just could not get into the touch controls. I never, ever want to play handheld games and CERTAINLY not mobile games but I made an exception for this. Might have been better if I bought a purpose-made controller or something but I didn't see it lasting after I realised how clunky it felt. If it was on console I'd have stuck at it for a lot loner I think.

This is literally the first time I've even heard of the game. So that's great job at advertising Squenix did for it!!!

I thought it would be a prequel to Crisis Core but it was a Battle Royale game 🤦🏾‍♂️

It’s a shame I REALLYYYY enjoyed this game and the chocobo hatching etc!! But they didn’t monetize the gacha system properly in my opinion. Rates were too low, pulls were too expensive, dupes were rewarded with increasing effects but there was 2 genders so it was INCREDIBLY difficult getting the male or female outfit you wanted. Not only that but the technical updates kept killing excitement. They put in Chocobos and might as well completely removed them from the game based on how hard they nerfed them to the ground. So many bad adjustments…. Such a bummer cuz this was the ONLY battle royale I’ve ever enjoyed 😕

I just got this game like a month ago and it was amazing !! 😢 super sad it ended today. Had no idea it failed that bad. Woke up today to play it and it was gone…. Hope they can fix what they need to and bring it back

I hate this I truly enjoyed this game. Ff7 was my childhood and I had so much fun on first soldier sucks

Had it been on consoles or PC things would’ve been different:

"Let's abandon the original fans of the original game that exploded our popularity and made us an American household name in 1997 and try to appeal instead to those kids playing Fortnite." Sounds good

This is why I think Square Enix, specifically FF, seems to have forgotten what made them such a huge staple & (somewhat) beloved company in the JRPG market.

It’d be so dope on console!

I think the game looked great and wanted to play it. It looked like it was trying to do something different and not just be another battle royal clone. I just had no intrest in playing it on a phone. I dunno why they never gave a console release a chance.

4:28 Now this is epic. I still can't think of a weirder thing to exist.

Square is such a duality, sometimes they make masterpiece while other time they just failed miserably

The game was cool and a new flavor to try for the br genre but once the first season ended I felt the need for better aiming sensitivity and a proper console or pc release would make the experience so much better imo. I’d hope to get it one day but alas it ended shutting down instead. I stopped playing around the end of the first season.

You can't say record keeper is a succes a few weeks after it closed in all the west... T.T

I stopped playing 6 months into the release because my account was wiped. No clue why it happened or how but I was never able to get it back or get in contact with anyone to help. All the links were to Japanese sites. Just unmotivated to loose money and time like that

Sounds like Square Enix picked Ateam so they wouldn't have to think about it anymore and if it failed, it wouldn't really affect them.

Played the first month or two, got the battle pass, even stepped back in to check out dragoon. Would have probably played more if it was on console, and this is as someone that's not as into the battle royal genre. I just liked all the FF isms. Hell I play League Wild Rift cause I know they are working on a console version with cross data so I keep my skins and champions.

Because it was trying to cash in on the BR craze far too late and only being on mobile lol It didn't need to exist

Can anyone tell me what final fantasy 7 is the one shown here? the one with cloud and barret

I wanted to try it, but it is still not available in my country, either on Play store of Apple Store. And yet i live in West EU ... :/

I played this on and off over time. It certainly sucks seeing it end like this but I can't say I'm too surprised to see it go either

It was a game i would have loved to play if it was on anything else but mobile

Same as most people here, my problem was it being only mobile. First, I needed a high-end phone to play it, which I do not have. Second, mobile controls for a game like that are always wonky. They never work exactly the way they're supposed to. If they ported this to a console or PC I definitely would have played it. It honestly looked pretty fun.

The main problem with a lot of these spin off games is they are missing a main marketing ploy that being In game lore. It’s what makes that universe so fascinating and keeps the player base coming back.

I played from launch all the way through beginning of second season but then due to life events I stoped playing mobile in general only getting back to it a couple weeks after season four started. This definitely was one of the few battle Royales I actually enjoy, but I’m not an avid battle Royale player so most of my draw was in the Final Fantasy elements of it. Being able to explore Midgar in a pretty good open world was great.

I played First Soldier quite a bit and really enjoyed it, but even within a month or so it was obvious that the game was struggling. If I played for an extended period I'd start to notice getting matched up with the same people, special event matches almost never had anyone actually playing them, and there was really no significant incentive to play Ranked over your standard Quick Match rounds. The game's Battle Pass had some neat rewards but the game was still pretty predatory overall and even with the Pass it felt like you needed to drop a lot of money just to actually get the cosmetics you cared about, more expensive than most Fortnite items. Being locked to mobile was a HUGE misstep, too. I firmly believe this game would've taken off it had been on PC and Console as well. It takes the basic framework of Battle Royale but adds unique FF-style mechanics to it and that alone makes it feel fresh and unique in a world of Fortnites and PUBG's. Considering we haven't seen Ever Crisis even one time since its initial reveal, I have a strong feeling it's either getting shelved entirely or severely reworked to avoid the same problems First Soldier had.

"Nomura doesn't play battle royale games and frankly isn't interested in them." Honestly it kind of shows, I played it a little myself and it was just... Underwhelming? There was nothing about it that made it stand out from the hundreds of other BR games these days. My personal opinion on it was: - Being on mobile only most certainly hurt it, games with this level of intricacy need controllers or keyboards. It would be like playing an fps on mobile, it's going to be very hard to implement proper movement, aiming, shooting, reloading, grenades, special equipment/abilites and crouching on a touchscreen. Sure you can argue that everyone's in the same boat, but that also means everyone is probably frustrated that they could probably be playing way better as well. - Relating to that it makes sense they wanted into the BR market, it's hugely profitable when you hit a niche so you can see their thought process. But again there was nothing about it that stood out, there weren't any unique mechanics or aspects of the game that would make BR players think "Sure, i'll give this a chance." beyond the fact that its FFVII. If that's the case you can forget about retaining your player base. Combining these last two points of course the fortnite and PUBG players weren't going anywhere. - I have found, and I'm sure a large part of the fanbase would agree with this, the appeal of the Final Fantasy series as a whole has always been the storytelling, character development, party setup and tactical combat, none of which is present in First Soldier. Part of me was interested to maybe find out more about the early iterations of SOLDIER, how was it formed, what was different compared to the main story but all we got was... They all fight each other? For... Training? Fun? Honestly I don't know. It had as much depth as any other "Choose your fighter and chuck them into the arena." You would have thought after Dissidia NT that square would have been a lot more careful in their approach of E-sport type games. Personally I don't care for battle royale games but there's a lot within the FF universe that could have potentially at least given this a niche audience. Oh well, here's hoping they at least don't mess with the formula too much in Ever Crisis!

Man I think it was just these past few days that I even learned that this was even released

Being a Ff fan myself and hugely into 7, I agree with most being hopeful in new content. I lamented the thought though at a mobile game and even more so a Battle Royale. I still gave it a shot but knew all too well the game would die as I gave up a little after launch of FF7FS. This is a type of game that should've been on PC and they knew it. Even with all the fans trying to get emulators to play on PC and them continuously getting patched to stop the emulators....yea...

I thought it was a fun idea and tried to get into it a few times, but I'm just not a mobile gamer. I would have loved to see it on PC or a console.

I remember hearing this was coming out and kind of forgot, when they announced it was closing I had no idea it had even come out yet. XD

I think I saw the reveal trailer and never heard a peep about it after that.

I played first soldier for about 2 months or so.. then stopped because there was not a lot of people playing it... and felt like it was always missing something . I found the game play was enjoyable and the graphics were very good.

I was so hyped for this game and then I never got done with the tutorial 😂 ooops

"Hey let's make a game in genre we know nothing about that literally no one is asking for, what can go wrong?"

Cause it's a BR in a world ridiculously overcrowded by BRs, simple as that. Everyone said this was a quick cash grab using BR and FFVII and it ended up being exactly that.

Hopefully Square realizes now that pre-registrations, which is just you putting in an email address to show interest means absolutely nothing lol.. That being said, I strum want Ever Crisis and hope this doesn’t impact it!