We now have our most concrete bit of evidence to back up long-whispered rumors about Final Fantasy 14 Mobile, and it comes from the Chinese Government, of all things.
Niko Partners reports that China's National Press and Publication Administration has approved a new batch of "import games" that are now allowed to come out in the country, including an unnamed Rainbow Six game, Marvel Snap, Marvel Rivals, Paper Mario: The Origami King, and a mobile version of Final Fantasy 14 coming from Square Enix and tech conglomerate Tencent, which you might recognize as the company that's already bought up large chunks of the industry.
Niko Partners' Daniel Ahmad elaborates that "it's expected to be a standalone MMORPG separate from the PC game," though there's no official confirmation on that as of right now since the port/spin-off/standalone-thingy hasn't even been properly announced by Square Enix and Co.
I believe this is the first official confirmation of a Final Fantasy XIV Mobile game?The title is being developed by Tencent's Lightspeed Studios and Square Enix. It's expected to be a standalone MMORPG separate from the PC game.August 2, 2024
News about the smash success MMO coming to more platforms isn't too surprising since it's beloved by waves of fans, hugely profitable for its publisher, and the development team is excited about enough ideas to fuel them until at least 9.0. Final Fantasy 14 just came to Xbox consoles ahead of its most recent expansion, and producer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida said he "would love" to see the game on Nintendo Switch's successor. An even smaller screen port just seems like an inevitability.
Elsewhere, the big Dawntrail balance patch dropped earlier this week to "raise the DPS of certain jobs rather than lower them," as Pictomancer mains survived with no nerfs affecting the new painter role.